Turning Point
by etmuse
Summary: Sequel to Guilt: In the aftermath of Lisa's death, Ianto is struggling to cope - and new surprises don't help matters much. Can his friends on the team at Torchwood help him carry on?
1. Chapter 1 of 64

Jack emerged from the hatch in his office and lifted his arms, stretching out the kinks from a practically sleepless night.

The Hub was always quiet at this time of the morning; the only sounds were the trickle of water down the base of the water tower and the gentle hum of the Rift monitoring equipment. Jack had lived there for so long that those sounds had completely faded into the background – he had to actually concentrate even to hear them anymore.

This particular morning, however, there was something disturbing his silence, a faint noise from somewhere out in the Hub. Jack strode out of his office, in search of the cause. It didn't take him very long to find.

He glanced at his watch.

"Ianto, it's not even 7.30am yet. What are you doing here at this hour? For that matter, why are you here at all? You're supposed to be on leave."

"Couldn't sleep," Ianto grunted, scrubbing harder at the component of the partially dismantled coffee machine that he had in his hand. "And I couldn't face sitting at home any more."

In the four days since Lisa's death, Jack and Tosh had been taking turns to sit with Ianto at his flat, making sure he ate and washed and just generally being there for him. Despite their efforts, Ianto still looked like Hell, his face pale and gaunt; his clothes wrinkled, his eyes haunted. Jack knew he wasn't sleeping properly – didn't blame him really, given that he himself was sleeping even worse than he normally did.

"Are you sure you don't want to go home, try to get some more rest?" Jack asked gently. "I'll even come back with you, if you don't want to be alone."

Ianto shook his head firmly. "I need to be… doing something. Keeping busy." He set down the now sparklingly clean machine component and picked up the next. "I really can't deal with doing nothing. Especially not this morning."

Jack nodded and put a hand on Ianto's arm. "Okay then. I'll… ah…" He gestured to the various pieces of coffee machine laid out across the counter. "Leave you to it. I'll just be in my office if you need anything, though. Anything at all."

Ianto nodded as Jack did as he said and left him to his task.

The mood in the Hub that morning was quiet and sombre. None of them had been particularly jovial all week, but today it was even more pronounced. They all knew what was happening that afternoon.

Tosh and Owen had taken care of most of the arrangements. Ianto hadn't really been in any fit state to do it himself - although he'd certainly had input.

Shortly after lunch – a sad affair that involved more picking at food than eating it – they climbed into the SUV. Ianto carefully cradled a small box in his lap.

The spot he'd chosen - a little under an hour's drive out of Cardiff - was stunningly beautiful. Green hills rolled around them, and a small stream trickled past.

It was also a good fifteen minute-walk from where they'd parked the car at the side of the road. Which meant that, unlike so many other pretty spots in the region, it wasn't populated with picnic tables and young families out for a mid-week day trip.

Even the sun was shining down on them, making the water in the stream sparkle.

They gathered together down by the stream, Ianto still clutching the box tight.

"Lisa…" he began falteringly. "Lisa didn't know this area very well, so…" He had to pause again and take a gulping breath.

"Before… Before… She asked me that if the worst happened, we would scatter her somewhere… somewhere pretty." He looked around them. "I think she'd approve of this place; I hope she would have, anyway."

He worried his top lip between his teeth and spoke wistfully. "My dad brought me past here quite a few times when I was a kid; we went walking sometimes, in the summers. I always made him stop so I could throw sticks into the water."

He squared his shoulders and looked down at the box in his arms. The rest of the team had taken care of the actual cremation; burying Lisa had been out of the question, given her condition when she had died. Ianto hadn't been able to bring himself to be there.

"I'd always wanted to bring Lisa up here. I just didn't imagine it would be like this."

Tosh laid a comforting hand on his arm and he nodded resolutely.

"We're up here today to… say our final goodbyes to Lisa, and to remember her as she was. To remember Lisa, and not just…"

His words trailed off as he swallowed hard again to stay in control.

Tosh took pity on him and started them off. "I didn't get to know Lisa nearly as well as I should have, but what I knew of her, I liked. She was strong and brave, and she kept on fighting right to the end. The world needs more people like her, and she'll be missed."

"She went through so much, but she didn't whine about it, even though she had every right to," Owen added. "We could all learn a lot from her. My only regret is that I couldn't do more."

Jack stared off towards the horizon, and he sounded choked up when he spoke. "She was kind, and friendly, and funny. She wasn't afraid to laugh at herself. She definitely wasn't afraid to tell you if she thought you were wrong. She and I could have been great friends. I wish we'd all had more time to get to know her." He tried to surreptitiously wipe at his eyes; everyone noticed, but no one made any comment. They knew how he felt.

Ianto blew out a breath and held the box a little tighter. "When I first met Lisa," he started unsteadily. "When we first met, nearly seven years ago, I was hardly more than a boy, was just beginning to put my life back together. She was…"

He shook his head fondly in reminiscence. "She was the best friend I could have asked for. If… if it weren't for her, I wouldn't be who I am today. She helped me get my life back on track, and I'll always love her for that."

He didn't attempt to hide the unshed tears in his eyes as he went on. "But that was only part of who she was." He chuckled slightly through his tears. "She frustrated me and she aggravated me, and she'd drive me up the wall sometimes, but…"

He sighed. "But she always knew just what to say to cheer me up after a bad day. She… She would look after me when I needed it, and she let me look after her when the tables were turned. She knew me probably better than I know myself."

The tears were openly falling down his cheeks now, even as his mouth curled up in a bittersweet smile. "She was my life, and there will always be a little part of me missing, the part that went with her. No matter what's to come in the future, I will love her until the day that I die."

He opened the box carefully, taking a step closer to the stream.

Tipping it up slowly, they all watched as the ashes drifted down towards the water, scattered by the light breeze.

"Goodbye, Lisa. You will always be in our hearts."


	2. Chapter 2 of 64

Ianto yawned as he pulled another stack of files from the cabinet. Putting them down on the small desk he'd cleared off down here, he glanced at his watch.

Nearly 2am.

He knew he was tired, but he also knew that he was quite so tired yet that he would be able to go home and just collapse into bed and sleep. If he let himself lie down and try to sleep before he was absolutely exhausted, his thoughts would run away with him, and he would never get to sleep.

Jack had tried to convince him to forget about work - stay at home and just take some time to get over the worst of things - but it just wasn't possible. He couldn't let himself dwell for too long, couldn't let himself slip into that mindset, or he feared he'd never drag himself back out.

It was easier to be here, rather than at home. Here, he could keep himself busy, keep his mind and hands busy. Do something useful.

He was past the point of concentration where he would trust himself down in the real depths of the archives, with the potentially dangerous artefacts, but he could still sort files.

He'd started coming in every day again ten days ago - just after Lisa's memorial service - and he was on his third cabinet. He'd made it through the cabinets containing all the data since 2000 first; he'd had a head start with those, since he'd already made some headway while they had been searching for things to help her.

While those had started out hopelessly chaotic, they were nothing on those from further back, and, for once, he was glad. It wasn't hard work, but it required just enough concentration that he did actually have to think and pay attention to what he was doing. It guaranteed him enough of a distraction to get him through the days without breaking down.

He yawned again and wondered if there was anything left in the coffee pot upstairs. He wondered even more briefly if caffeine was actually a good idea at this time of night - he did, after all, intend to sleep _eventually_.

Deciding that sleep be damned, he put down the folder he was holding and went to check.

There wasn't any, but he started a new pot anyway. Jack would be sure to gladly accept a cup when he returned from… wherever it was that he had disappeared to. Ianto knew that he hadn't gone down to sleep in his tiny room under his office, because if he looked down, he could see that the hatch was closed.

That Jack was still out and around at 2am didn't particularly surprise Ianto. The more time he'd spent in the Hub, the more he'd realised that Jack's assertion that he didn't really sleep much was, in fact, based on solid fact. He would often wander around Cardiff half the night, and any minor calls that came in after he'd sent everyone home, he'd take on his own.

The coffee was just beginning to drip into the pot when there was a crash and a bump from somewhere below him. The garage, probably. He wasn't particularly concerned until there was another, louder, crash.

Hopping down the steps, he made his way to the garage. The SUV was there, the boot open, with Jack swaying slightly behind it as he attempted to drag an unconscious and restrained Weevil from the back.

Ianto winced when he noticed there was a puddle of blood pooling at his feet.

"Here, let me do that," he said quietly, clearly surprising Jack. "You need to go and take a look at those injuries."

Jack stood up straighter and wobbled, nevertheless shaking his head. "I'm fine," he insisted. "I've got this." He swayed a little more, one hand coming up to grip the side of the SUV to stop himself from falling.

Ianto took a step closer. "You're not fine," he said firmly. "You're bleeding everywhere."

Jack glanced down in surprise. "Oh… Sorry. I'll clean it up. Promise."

Ianto took another step closer, realising that the blood was coming from a gaping wound on Jack's lower torso. Jack wobbled even more, and Ianto wondered how he'd even managed to make it back to the Hub.

"Jack. You really, _really_ are not fine. I need to call Owen, or an ambulance, or… something."

Jack shook his head. "No, don't…" he slurred. "M'jus…"

With that, he collapsed to the ground, his eyes rolling back in his head, blood seeping from his abdomen as his breath started to rattle.

Ianto dropped to his knees beside him and tried not to panic. "No, no. Don't do this, Jack. Please, don't _do_ this!"


	3. Chapter 3 of 64

Ianto wished he'd taken first aid classes. Thanks to the events of the past months, he had a lot more medical knowledge than he'd had before, but his first aid skills were still on the rudimentary side.

He'd attempted CPR, his hands becoming soaked in the blood covering Jack while he knelt in a puddle of the same, but he'd never had any training in it. He didn't know if he'd even done it properly, with only vague recollections of things people had said and medical dramas to go on.

It hadn't worked, anyway.

Jack wasn't breathing. He had no pulse. Ianto had put his head to his chest just to check. His heart wasn't beating.

He was dead.

Tears had started to trickle down Ianto's cheeks when he'd known for sure.

This just couldn't be happening. Jack couldn't be dead. It had to be a nightmare, because the world just couldn't be cruel enough to do this to him, could it? His whole world had been ripped from him barely two weeks before; Jack had been one of the few things helping him to carry on. Helping him get up every morning, put one foot in front of the other and keep faith that it would get better, eventually.

If Jack was gone…

Tears traced with ever increasing volume down Ianto's face at the very thought.

He knew he should get up - contact the rest of the team and let them know what had happened - but he couldn't bring himself to move.

He collapsed in on himself, bending over Jack's still body and resting his head on his shoulder.

"Please, don't be dead, Jack," he whispered brokenly, knowing it was useless but not caring. "I need you."

His shoulders shuddered as he wept into Jack's shirt; wept in despair as he wondered what he'd do now.

There was a slight movement underneath him but he dismissed it, barely noticed it in the first place.

His heart rate shot through the roof when there was another, more pronounced movement, and then he was thrown off completely as Jack drew in a huge gasping breath and flailed wildly.

Ianto scrambled back a foot or two and stared at Jack in shock and disbelief as the older man sat up with a pained grimace.

He glanced down and noted in astonishment that, although the bottom half of Jack's shirt was still shredded and soaked in blood, the skin beneath it was perfectly intact.

"But… But you were dead!" he spluttered. "I checked. You were definitely dead."

Jack nodded and shrugged slightly. "It's possible."

Ianto shook his head incredulously. "What do you mean '_it's possible'_? You were _dead_. Gone. No breathing. No pulse. Nothing. And now, you're… not."

"I can't die," said Jack, matter-of-factly.

"Yes, you can," Ianto disputed. "I just saw you. You died!"

"Okay, you're right, I _can_ die," Jack acquiesced. "I just don't _stay_ dead."

Ianto bit his lip. "But… but… how?"

Jack shook his head. "I don't know."

"You must have some idea. I mean, did you drink or touch something, or…?"

Jack shook his head again. "Nope. It's… I…" He paused and seemed to be considering how best to continue. "I was travelling with some friends. We… got caught up in a bit of a war. I was killed." He sighed deeply. "And then I woke up. And my friends were gone. Ever since then, I've had a problem staying dead. Been stabbed, shot, mauled, electrocuted, starved… Nothing sticks."

Ianto didn't know how to react to that, he really didn't. "How… how long ago was that, then?" he eventually asked, quietly.

Jack tilted his head as he counted. "Nearly 140 years."

Ianto gaped. "140 years?"

Jack nodded. "Looking pretty good for my age, aren't I?" he quipped, trying to lighten the tone. "I haven't aged a day. So for all intents and purposes, I'm immortal. I'll live forever." He punctuated the last with an ironic hand flourish.

Ianto was silent for a long moment. He couldn't decide whether Jack's ability was a blessing or a curse – although he sensed that Jack was leaning heavily towards the 'curse' end of the scale.

"Do the others know?"

Jack shook his head vehemently. "No! And please don't tell them. Most… most people who find out tend to start thinking of me as a bit of a freak, and I don't want to go through that again."

Ianto opened his mouth to tell Jack he didn't think he was a freak, but realised before he made a sound that Jack had already realised that. "I won't say anything," he promised. "Now, how about we get this Weevil down to the cells before it comes around, and get you cleaned up?"


	4. Chapter 4 of 64

Tosh looked and smiled at Ianto, thanking him for the mug of coffee he had just set on the edge of her desk.

As he moved on to put another mug beside Owen, she was glad to note that the dark rings under his eyes were slowly beginning to lighten.

She'd been worried about him, desperately worried.

She'd watched him drift steadily downwards for two weeks following Lisa's death. Watched him slide closer and closer to the edge, trying to keep a hold on him, trying to help him back, but watching helplessly as he slipped further and further away.

Then, about a week ago, something had changed. It was like he'd hit the bottom and finally found some strength there to start climbing back up.

Something had pulled him back.

No, some_one_ had pulled him back. _Jack_ had pulled him back.

She didn't know what had happened. Didn't know what Jack had finally done or said that had helped Ianto turn that oh-so-important first corner.

But, to be completely honest, she didn't care. All that mattered was that the corner _had_ been turned. He still had a long way to go, and she didn't labour under any delusions that his road was going to be easy, but he was on it.

With help from them all – and she knew that they were all just waiting right there to help – Tosh was beginning to have a little confidence that he was going to make it through this, eventually. She was starting to feel that if she held out her hand to pull him along, he'd be able to grasp it and come along with her.

She only hoped she was reading the signs right.

She took a sip of her coffee – prepared, as always, despite Ianto's own state of mind, just as she liked it – and watched as Ianto tapped on the doorframe leading to Jack's office.

Jack's head lifted from the paperwork he was diligently attempting to keep on top of - for once - and he smiled up encouragingly at Ianto.

"It's not just me, right?" Tosh asked Owen, who she noticed was watching Ianto just as closely as she was.

Owen turned and looked at her questioningly.

"Ianto," Tosh clarified. "He's looking… better. Well, a little better, anyway, isn't he?"

Owen nodded and turned back to look towards Jack's office. "Yeah, he's looking up a bit," he confirmed. "It's not just you."

Although he would have died before showing it too overtly, Owen had been dreadfully scared for Ianto in the last weeks. The haunted eyes, dark circles and gaunt expression all told of a man who wasn't sleeping or eating properly; a man who just wasn't taking care of himself at all.

Owen couldn't really fault him for that – he barely remembered those first weeks after Katie; they were swallowed up in a haze of grief and anger and pain. He'd been lost, and if it hadn't been for Jack, and the new focus he'd given him at Torchwood, he didn't know if he'd have made it out the other side.

He was relieved to see that something Jack was doing – and he didn't much care what - was finally starting to do the same for Ianto.

If it had gone much longer without any sign of improvement – or any change at all, in fact - he knew that he would have had to intervene and prescribe Ianto something. He was still tempted to give him sleeping pills; despite the improvement, he still didn't think Ianto was sleeping enough yet. Again, he couldn't really blame him, but he hated to see the effect it was having on the young Welshman.

He was also still tempted to force feed Ianto something filled with calories and fat, as he had become almost painfully thin. Even before Lisa's death, Owen had known that Ianto was not always eating properly. If the whole team were not staying late for one reason or another and therefore ordering in take-away of some sort for dinner, Owen suspected Ianto had been skipping meals entirely in order to spend as much time at Lisa's side as possible.

Combined with his almost pointed lack of appetite in the fortnight following her demise, it had left Ianto on the verge of becoming dangerously underweight. Owen had been watching him carefully – and, he hoped, surreptitiously – and was pleased to see that he had, at last, begun eating properly again.

They both watched as Ianto handed Jack his mug of industrial strength coffee and made to leave, only to be called back by Jack and cajoled into sitting down.

A moment or two later, something that could _almost_ be called a brief smile momentarily graced Ianto's lips.

Both Owen and Tosh smiled to see it. Ianto was finally within reach of the light at the end of the tunnel and, with support from them all, he was going to make it through.


	5. Chapter 5 of 64

"So, what are we working on, then?" Jack asked later that morning in the conference room. "Given that even the Weevils seem to have been on holiday or something for the last few days."

"Or they were until you came out with _that_," Owen complained.

"Yeah, yeah, touch wood or whatever," Jack replied, "but it's true. Things have been quiet, so I just want an update on how your individual projects are going."

"Well, on the topic of Weevils," Owen started, "the updated formulation of the Weevil spray seems to be working well. I'd estimate that it's actually about 60% more effective than the old one was; even before the resident population started building up a resistance to it."

"Yes, I'd noticed that it was keeping them down for longer, even without huge doses of tranquiliser," Jack said, sharing a brief glance with Ianto. "Good work there, Owen."

He glanced down at a notepad in front of him. "I have a feeling we're going to need it too. With the exception of the last few days, Weevil sightings and attacks are on the rise. I counted up the reports so far this year, and even though it's only the middle of June, we already have more Weevil incidents recorded than we did for the whole of last year. And that's even if we ignore all those directly related to that band of idiots in the warehouse."

"Really?" Tosh sounded a little surprised.

"Really," Jack confirmed. "I don't know what's causing it though."

"I could have a look into it," Tosh offered. "See if there's anything hidden in the Rift data, or anything that has changed in the environment recently that might be affecting the resident Weevil population."

Jack nodded. "Good idea. It's not top priority, though. Anything else comes up, it takes precedence over this."

"Of course," Tosh acquiesced immediately.

Ianto cleared his throat, surprising them all. "I can keep my eye out in the archives in case there's a mention of anything similar that has happened in the past."

Jack practically beamed at him, a little burst of happiness exploding inside him at Ianto's being alert enough to take an interest and offer up practical assistance. He'd been practically sleepwalking through most days in the last three weeks, so this reappearance of a spark of the real Ianto was reassuring.

"And I can definitely get you the historical data on exact dates and locations of Weevil activity," Ianto continued. "They go at least as far back as… " He paused for a second to think. "1997."

Tosh smiled at him. "Thanks, Ianto. That will be really helpful to set baselines, too."

Jack took a sip from his mug and nodded at them. "Right. Suzie, what've you got?"

"Well, I think I've finally begun to get a handle on what that glove does, and possibly how to use it. But if it does what I think it does, then we're probably going to need to outsource to find test subjects."

Jack looked at her questioningly. "Why? What do you think it does?"

"I think it resurrects the dead," Suzie said bluntly.

There were raised eyebrows and shocked looks from around the table.

"Not permanently," she qualified. "At least, I don't think so. I doubt it would last more than a few minutes, actually, but I can't be sure until I get it to work."

The others blinked at her.

"I actually attempted it a few times, with bodies from the morgue, but I didn't get anywhere," Suzie admitted, which didn't lessen the astonishment on the faces of all four of her co-workers. "I don't know if it's something to do with how long most of those bodies have been down there, or if it's just me. There was definitely something happening, but I just couldn't quite get it to work completely."

"So, what do you want us to do?" Jack asked.

"Well, first, maybe you should have a go – see if you have any better luck than I do," Suzie started. "And if that doesn't work, then maybe we need… fresher victims."


	6. Chapter 6 of 64

Jack pulled the glove off and shivered. While nothing had actually happened, he'd felt the faintest whisper of… something in the back of his mind, and it sent a cold, _wrong_ feeling up the back of his spine.

He held it out at arm's length, waiting for someone to take it from him.

Ianto was the only one of them who had yet to try it, but when the rest of the team looked at him, he simply shook his head. "I can't," he said shortly.

None of them pushed the matter. They all knew exactly why it might just be too much, too soon for Ianto.

"So none of you really felt anything?" Suzie asked, a little bit of disappointment in her voice.

They all shook their heads. Neither Tosh nor Owen had even felt the vague tingling that Jack had – Jack wasn't sure what that meant, if anything.

"Damn," Suzie muttered. "Maybe he really has just been gone for too long. Or maybe it only works when there's something else involved. What notes there were on it from before indicated that it had been found with several other items. Maybe one of those is the key?"

"Do you remember any details about any of them?" Jack asked her. "Maybe we can find them and see."

She shook her head. "They had consecutive item numbers around that of the glove though, if that helps."

"I… I think I remember what shelf the glove was on," Ianto interjected quietly. "I wasn't cataloguing things properly when we found it, but I think I remember. And it's a fairly good bet that everything found together would probably have been dumped in the archives together. It's not like there was any sort of real organisation going on there."

Jack allowed himself a small, wry smile. It was a good sign, he was sure, that Ianto had renewed his disdainful comments about the archiving habits of both Jack's team and their predecessors. He nodded. "Can't hurt to look."

Just as Ianto had asserted, it didn't take him all that long to locate the shelf where he'd originally found the glove. When they'd gone through that section of the archives, he had simply looked at the items and either set them aside for further investigation or replaced them on the shelf just where they had been before.

There was quite a collection of mismatched items on the shelf where the glove had been stored. After checking each one for a label and discovering that yes, they did in fact have the archive item numbers around that of the glove, Ianto collected them into a box and took them up to the Hub.

"Don't know if any of them will be useful, but this is what I could find," he announced solemnly as he placed the box on Suzie's workstation.

Suzie looked up briefly from her examination of yet another set of results about the mysterious glove and thanked him.

Leaving her to it, he climbed the steps to Tosh and Owen's desks. Jack was leaning against Tosh's desk, discussing something displayed on her screen with her.

"Has anything come up that you need my help with?" Ianto asked the three of them. "Or should I head down into the archives and start looking at historical data for the Weevil project?"

Three heads lifted in unison and turned to fix him with pleading looks. "No, nothing's come up, but…" Jack started.

Ianto sighed slightly, interrupting, "_After_ I've fixed another pot of coffee, of course."

Jack's answering grin nearly blinded him and, if he didn't know better, he would have been worried that Owen was going to try to hug him.

He turned away and headed towards the area he'd claimed as his own around the coffee machine, muttering under his breath about the caffeine monsters he seemed to have created out of his co-workers.


	7. Chapter 7 of 64

Jack really should have known better than to tempt fate over the brief lull in Weevil incidents. The call, reporting what a member of the public thought were 'two large, rabid… somethings' down near the old docks, came in just a few hours later.

Tosh started a complete set of detailed scans, covering the entire city, before she, Jack and Owen ran out to deal with them, leaving Ianto to watch over the scans and alert them to any significant movement of their quarry. Suzie stayed behind too, to go through the myriad of items from the box Ianto had pulled from the archives.

Most of the scans were still running when they returned - thankfully uninjured and with two unconscious Weevils in tow - nearly an hour later. Those that had finished had turned up nothing unusual. Ianto postulated out loud that it was possible that if there was some specific cause that might be picked up on the scans, it was a very temporary effect – by the time the Weevils were out in the open enough to be reported, the signal would have disappeared. He wasn't sure if he was pleased or dismayed when Tosh agreed that it was a very real possibility.

"Some of the scans could probably be left running full time for a bit, though," Tosh mused. "It would be a little bit of extra work on the mainframe, but nowhere near enough to make a huge difference. Maybe next time we'll get something."

"Fingers crossed," Ianto said, just as Owen rejoined them from the cells.

Jack looked down at his watch and blinked. "Right," he announced, in what Ianto privately called his 'Captain voice', "it's Friday, it's already past six, it's been a long day, and none of this is particularly urgent. All of you go home. Or go out, or whatever you want. Just go."

He turned his head and yelled down at where Suzie was still working, surrounded by various items as she studied on in the centre of the table. "That includes you, Suzie!"

"What does?" she called back, having tuned out the previous conversation completely.

"Go home!" Jack shouted firmly. "Unless there's an emergency - in which case I will call you - I don't want to see any of you until at least ten tomorrow morning."

Owen hurried to collect his things, never one to turn down the opportunity for a night off; he chivvied Tosh along too. They clattered out of the cog door together, and Owen could be heard challenging Tosh to a game of pool at a nearby pub as they left.

Suzie followed them more slowly, clearly reluctant to be torn away from her research and forced out into the wider world for the night.

Ianto turned as if to head back down to the archives. Jack caught him gently by the shoulders before he could take a single step in that direction. "You too, Ianto."

Ianto spun back to face him. "But…" Jack had been forcing him home earlier lately, and he'd actually been okay with it, but 'earlier' until now had meant nine or ten o'clock. Late enough that he could climb into bed with a book for company and avoid having to think about the emptiness of his flat; the emptiness that wasn't about to be filled.

Going home now would mean forcing himself to eat something in his tiny kitchenette. Finding something to occupy the hours before he could justify going to bed and curling up under his duvet.

He wasn't sure he wanted to admit to Jack that he didn't know if he was ready to cope with that quite yet. If he wanted to admit that, given a whole evening alone in his flat with no work to keep him busy, he was worried he might just break down and sob in a heap on the floor.

Although he didn't finish his sentence, Jack clearly noticed that Ianto was more than a little hesitant to head home for the evening.

Jack looked around the place thoughtfully, and Ianto was surprised when his next comment showed that perhaps he understood how Ianto was feeling better that he'd thought. "How about I come with you?" he said, his tone forcibly light. "Grab some takeaway, shove on a DVD. Give us both a bit of company."

Ianto nodded gratefully. "Yeah," he breathed, relieved that the evening might not turn out to be a nightmare after all. "That would be good."


	8. Chapter 8 of 64

"Nothing," Suzie called back, sounding frustrated. "I'm not finding any connection at all."

Jack nodded absently and put Suzie's research to the back of his mind as he leant over Tosh's shoulder, reading a few words from the reports she was simultaneously reading and parsing for numerical data she could use in the computer program she was putting together.

Ianto appeared on Tosh's other side a minute later, startling Jack just a little - he clearly hadn't heard the younger man approach. He put two folders down on the edge of Tosh's desk, one much thicker than the other.

"Either someone in 1972 was very organised, or they were trying to research a pattern into Weevil attacks," Ianto said quietly. "They were still, as a group, filed completely randomly in the end. But, at least, as far as I can make out, every report from that year is in that folder." He picked up the thinner folder. "Unless 1986 was a very Weevil-light year, I doubt this one has all the reports."

"Thanks, Ianto, you're doing fantastically well finding all this stuff," Tosh smiled at him. "I'm slowly matching up all the digitised Rift recordings with dates, so hopefully we'll be able to do _something_ with the data soon."

Jack flipped open the cover of the topmost folder, skimming over a couple of the first reports in it. The names of some familiar places around Cardiff jumped out at him; apparently, Weevil hotspots hadn't changed much since 1986.

"Are you finished with that lot, then?" Ianto asked Tosh, gesturing towards a small stack of folders on the other side of her desk.

Tosh nodded, her eyes back on her computer screen. "Yep. You can take them."

Jack blinked. "Take them where?"

Ianto shot him a look that was almost, but not quite, withering and condescending. There was still just a tinge too much of other emotions in his eyes to reach the full effect Jack knew from experience Ianto's looks could have.

"Back to the archives," he said flatly. "Where - well, for the moment I'm storing them in a file-box, just in case Tosh needs them again - but when the cabinets are fully sorted, they will – and this may come as a surprise to those of you who embraced the previous 'filing system' – be filed in the appropriate cabinet for their decade, under 'W' for 'Weevils'."

Jack tried to look chagrined - he really did - but he was finding it difficult to suppress the smile that wanted to break free. The smile that wanted to find its way to his face every time they got another little inkling that Ianto was beginning to heal, that the Ianto they'd come to know over the last few months was fighting his way back to them.

He thought he'd caught several glimpses of him the night before. The evening at Ianto's flat hadn't been entirely comfortable; Jack suspected that Ianto had thought for at least part of the time that he was only there to coddle him, not taking into account the fact that Jack thought of him as a _friend_.

Once the DVD had been put into the player, and they had slumped at opposite ends of the sofa to watch it, the tension began to release. Ianto had chosen a light-hearted comedy – _not_ one that had originally belonged to Lisa, Jack noted – and Jack had surreptitiously watched Ianto almost more than he had the film. Ianto hadn't quite laughed out loud, but there had been the hint of a chuckle, which was enough for Jack.

He held up his hands in exaggerated surrender. "Okay, okay, so my knowledge of the proper way to file things away is non-existent. We've been through this before. You don't have to keep reminding me."

Ianto picked up the pile of files and started back towards the archives. After a few steps, he turned back and a glimmer of a smile ghosted across his face. "No," he agreed, "I don't _have_ to."


	9. Chapter 9 of 64

Jack quickly gave up on even trying to convince Tosh or Ianto to go home early that night. They both spent far too much of their lives in the Hub – he told them so again, even though he was sure they both already knew it – but he was well aware that he wasn't necessarily the best person to be making that argument.

Owen had gone willingly, disappearing almost the moment the words 'home time, people' had escaped Jack's lips. Suzie, it appeared, had already disappeared at some point. She might have mentioned where she was headed, but Jack had spent much of the afternoon on the phone with a highly irritating UNIT official, and most of the rest of it watching Ianto and Tosh as the Welshman trekked back and forth from the archives, so he couldn't be entirely sure.

He hoped she had some sort of social engagement for once, and she wasn't just doing research on something elsewhere.

Tosh and Ianto, however, proved impossible to budge. Ianto had paused in one of his numerous journeys back and forth about an hour ago, had stayed just a little bit longer watching Tosh work, and she had eventually told him to just pull up a chair and give her a hand.

The last time Jack had gone over and interrupted, he had been shushed and waved away simultaneously by them both, in an odd moment of perfect synchronisation. They had been busy, apparently – too busy to appease their boss's curiosity about their latest progress – and he wasn't so determined to know that he was willing to risk the wrath of two of his favourite people at once. That would be terrifying.

It was late when he looked up from his still slightly backlogged pile of paperwork and noticed Tosh stop typing and share a look with Ianto that was either hope, triumph, or a mixture of the two.

He tossed his pen down and stood up, striding over to Tosh's desk and hoping that the lack of actual activity meant he wouldn't be wordlessly told to go away again.

"Are you stuck, or have you had a breakthrough?" he asked as he dropped a hand on both of their shoulders from behind.

"Hopefully, a breakthrough," Tosh said, twisting to look at him briefly.

"We've managed to line up several periods of data recordings with the Weevil reports from the archives," Ianto added.

"Not including the last couple of years," Tosh continued. "So I've set the program running now to manipulate the data sets and see if there's a historical correlation between Rift activity and Weevil sightings and attacks."

Ianto picked up the explanation again, "And, if there is, we can put the last year of Rift data through a model of that correlation, and see what it predicts Weevil activity _should_ have been, for that Rift activity."

"If it matches reality, then it's all down to the Rift," Tosh elucidated

"If it doesn't, then there's some other factor at play, and we can look at when it diverged from the prediction to see when this new factor appeared."

Jack blinked a couple of times as he tried to process the mass of information Tosh and Ianto had just imparted, his brain rushing to keep up through the seamless handovers of speech between them. If this is what resulted, he wasn't sure how good an idea it was to let them spend a lot of time together.

"How long do you think it will take for it to work out if there's a correlation or not?" he asked, once he'd managed to sort it all out in his head.

"That depends on what sort of correlation it is, if there is one," Tosh replied, neither she nor Ianto taking their eyes back off the screen. "If there _is_ a correlation, it will find it much faster than it would be possible to rule out the possibility of one completely. It's running through a series of regression techniques, and…" She paused, evidently realising she was going into a lot more detail than Jack really needed. "Sometime tomorrow at the latest, if there _is_ one," she informed him. "Hopefully."

"And the mainframe can just work on this alone, with no further input?" Jack clarified.

Tosh nodded absently.

Jack glanced down at his watch and grabbed the back of the two chairs Ianto and Tosh were sitting on, spinning them around to face him. "In that case, as it is past 11pm, I am _sending you both home_." He folded his arms and tried to look firm. "And if that means forcibly escorting you from the building, believe me, I will."

Tosh and Ianto exchanged a look, sighed, and disappeared.


	10. Chapter 10 of 64

Ianto had the feeling he was walking in on the tail end of an argument when he stepped through the cog door the next morning.

"I don't like it. I don't like it at all."

Sure enough, Jack and Suzie were faced off against each other just outside Jack's office door.

"It might be the only way to test it, though!"

He had intended to go visit Tosh's workstation, and see what the program they'd left running overnight had spit out, but a quick look at the expressions on Jack and Suzie's faces had him veering to the right instead, and climbing the steps to the tiny area where the coffee machine was located.

Perhaps by the time he'd finished setting the machine up for the day and brewing some strong coffee the disagreement would have cooled off enough that he could give Jack and Suzie theirs without being caught in the cross-fire.

He was relieved to hear the cog door opening again just as he was adding the last of the freshly ground beans to the machine. He turned around and saw Tosh smile up at him. Evidently noticing the tension in the office area, she turned and joined him at the coffee machine.

"I was going to go have a look at the program when I got in," Ianto started.

"But you didn't want to have your head bitten off in the process," Tosh finished for him and Ianto nodded.

He switched on the coffee machine, and they both stood, waiting as it brewed, listening to its burbling and bubbling noises. When the machine went quiet again, they glanced over at Jack and Suzie.

"Do you think it's safe yet?" Tosh asked as Ianto started preparing mugs for the four of them.

Ianto shrugged a little, reaching over behind the tiny sink for a tray. He glanced back at them again before answering, "Safety in numbers," he said quietly. "If we go over together we should be safe, I reckon."

Picking up her mug, Tosh nodded and followed Ianto away from the machine.

Jack and Suzie were still bickering when they made their way across the office area, Ianto handing each of them a cup of coffee while trying to stay as invisible as possible.

"It's not like it's actually going to hurt anyone!"

"We don't know that, not for sure!"

Ianto balanced the now empty tray on the corner of Tosh's desk and slid into the char he'd occupied the night before.

"Anything?"

Tosh nodded, fingers flying over the keyboard as she brought up the results of the program they'd left running overnight. "It's found a pattern. It isn't perfect, of course, but it's in there. I just need to reverse the correlation now and set it up so it can model what it thinks we should have been experiencing for the last two years."

"Anything you need help with?" Ianto queried. "Well, not _need_ of course, but would like?"

Tosh shook her head, her eyes staying focussed on the screen. "Thanks, but I think I've got it."

Ianto picked the tray back up and was about to head for the archives for another day of attempting to bring order to what he'd tentatively nicknamed 'the filing cabinets of doom' when the door rolled open. Owen walked through blearily, looking very much like he'd prefer to be almost anywhere else, although 'still in bed' was probably top of the list.

Ianto took one look at him and climbed back towards the coffee machine, mentally calculating which was the biggest mug they owned and how strong a brew the coffee machine could handle.


	11. Chapter 11 of 64

It appeared that Jack had lost the argument. Even without knowing the substance of the disagreement, the sulk Jack descended into for the rest of the morning made it clear that he hadn't been able to persuade Suzie around to his side.

And when Jack was in a bad mood, the tension throughout the Hub rose to an almost unbearable level. Ianto made sure there was plentiful coffee in the pot and escaped to the archives, taking an earpiece with him so Tosh could let him know when she'd managed to get her Rift-Weevil activity model running.

When a voice sounded in his ear a little over an hour later, it wasn't the one he'd been expecting. "Hey, can you come up and watch the Hub for a while? There's… _something_ hovering out around Tremorfa, but they're blocking most of Tosh's scans, so we don't know what. We need to get out there and check it out."

"I'll be right up." Carefully marking where he'd reached, Ianto nudged the filing cabinet drawer shut and headed up to the Hub.

The ship – for it was an alien ship, after all – turned out to be not so much an invasion force as some very lost tourists. The cloaking shields, as they explained to the team, had been raised as soon as they got their positioning system working well enough again to let them realise where they were. After some helpful directions from Jack towards the nearest planet they would be likely to find help on, they were off, leaving the team with a rather anticlimactic feeling.

Tosh's simulation of what her correlation would predict for the Weevil activity in the last 2 years, based on historical data, had finished while they were out. Ianto had watched its progress on one of Tosh's screens while keeping an eye on the scans (particularly those across Tremorfa) on the other.

When it had blinked and indicated that it was complete, he had been strongly tempted to have a look. He knew Tosh would forgive him if he did, but he knew just as certainly that that wouldn't stop him feeling guilty about it.

It was Tosh's project, and she deserved the first look at the results of her programming efforts. No matter how curious he was.

Tosh made a beeline straight for her desk the moment she and the rest of the team returned to the Hub. She hit a few keys and the computer brought up a screen full of numbers. A few more keys and the data organised itself into a graphical format, plotting both the predicted and actual Weevil activity against time, over the last two years.

Tosh and Ianto stared at it, silently, for a few seconds. What it showed wasn't exactly a surprise, but expecting it and actually seeing it were two very different things. After a few moments, Tosh found her voice.

"Jack!" she called. "I think you might like to see this!"

Jack bounded up to join them, still in his greatcoat. "What have you got?"

Tosh gestured towards the graphs on the screen.

The two lines – the simulated activity and the recorded – matched almost exactly until approximately seven months before the end of the data; early December 2005, in real terms. After that, they began to diverge swiftly; actual sightings often outnumbered those expected from Rift activity alone by almost two to one. And it wasn't a steady difference, which would have suggested outside interference less strongly. Sometimes the two lines almost matched again for a short while, before a spike in sightings and attacks took the 'actual' line way higher again.

"This doesn't look good, "Jack said. "Something is clearly up."

Tosh nodded. "The fact that the first year and a half of data matches up so well gives me confidence that the model does work – the correlation the computer found was pretty good. But something new was introduced to the system last December; something that's clearly affecting the Weevils, maybe even more strongly than the Rift does."

Jack opened his mouth to speak.

"No, I don't have any idea what it could be," Tosh answered before he had a chance to ask the question. She shot a look at Ianto. "But with Ianto and me on the case, we'll get to the bottom of it, just you watch."


	12. Chapter 12 of 64

Jack followed Tosh, Owen and Suzie into the hospital morgue uncomfortably. Ever since the first time he'd woken up in one - almost a century before - he'd disliked morgues. The vaults at Torchwood were _just_ dissimilar enough that they didn't give him a shiver down his spine whenever he went down there.

This late in the evening, the room was darkened and all but abandoned. The junior pathologist, who was nominally in charge of the place for the night, was nowhere to be seen. Although they were keeping an eye out, just in case he reappeared.

Jack set his shoulders and resolutely pushed his discomfort away.

"Right, so where do we start?" he asked as Suzie set the case she was carrying on the floor and opened it, pulling out the metal glove.

"Doesn't really matter, I don't think," Suzie replied, her gaze fixed on the glove. "Pick one at random."

Jack took a deep breath and pointed at a drawer, looking to Tosh – who had hacked into the hospital system on their way in – for the details of its occupant.

"Brian Davies, 47," she said, tapping at her PDA. "Heart attack, this afternoon."

"So not long ago, then," Suzie said, slipping the glove onto her hand. "That's good."

Owen grabbed the handle and opened the relevant door, sliding the drawer out carefully.

He pulled the sheet the man was wrapped in back from his face, closing his eyes for a moment as he contemplated what they were about to attempt. He unwrapped a little more, thinking that if it worked, there was no use panicking the man any more than they had to; he didn't need to find himself wrapped tightly in a sheet.

The rest of them all took a step back, unsure what they should expect, as Suzie stepped forward, the glove on her hand.

"If this works," Tosh suddenly started, "what do we say to him?" The others all looked at her. "Well, we can't just bring him back from the dead - however temporarily it might turn out to be - and then stand and stare at him in silence. We have to say something."

"I think we might be a little busy with getting him not to _panic_ to have any sort of meaningful conversation, Tosh," Owen said wryly.

Jack nodded. "He has a point."

Suzie stepped closer and rested her gloved hand on the man's head. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath; an oddly strained look passed over her face for a second and then there was a gasping breath from the technically dead man on the drawer.

Jack, Owen and Tosh all startled back another step; they hadn't really expected it to work.

"What's going on?" Brian whimpered, his eyes snapping open. "I don't… I…" He started to hyperventilate and then stopped breathing completely, eyes becoming fixed again beneath his still-open eyelids.

Owen reached over and put his fingers against the pulse point in his neck. "He's gone again," he said, lifting his hand to brush Brian's eyes closed.

"It worked!" Suzie said, the excitement clear in her voice even though she spoke quietly. "It actually worked!"

"For about… ten seconds," Toshiko qualified.

"But it _worked_," Suzie repeated, her eyes wide. "I was right; the bodies in the vaults had just been gone for too long. Although, I wonder if cause of death makes a big difference…" She looked down at the glove and then up at Tosh. "What are the other… options… for deaths today?"

Tosh tapped a few more times on her PDA and brought up a list. "Cancer, liver failure, another heart attack, RTC, influenza…"

"RTC?" Suzie interrupted. "What sort of injuries?"

"From the records, it would appear that the steering column went through the chest. He died pretty quickly."

"Which drawer?"

Tosh bit her lip. "Seventeen."

Suzie took the few steps towards the new door, marked plainly with the numerals '17', while Owen covered Brian Davies once more, took a breath, and shut him back into his drawer.

The occupant of drawer seventeen was a young man, his torso crushed and mutilated when they pulled back the sheet.

Tosh looked down at her watch when Suzie put her gloved hand on the top of his head rather than watch the process too carefully.

Unlike Brian, the young man didn't awake quietly; his scream actually made the team worry that someone might hear and come running to see what was going on.

"What's happening? Where am I? Who are you?" The young man started hyperventilating almost as soon as he stopped screaming and, thirty seconds later, suddenly stopped as the life left his body.

Tosh looked up from her watch as Owen moved in to rewrap. "Nearly forty-five seconds. Significantly longer than the previous attempt."

Suzie nodded. "So, either we need younger victims, or a more traumatic death."


	13. Chapter 13 of 64

"I thought I told you before we left that you should go home."

Ianto spun around, a small stack of folders in his arms, to look at Jack where he was leaning – as was his wont – against the doorframe to his office. His mouth opened, but it was a few seconds before he worked out what to say. "I know, but I had some things to get done and I just lost track of time a bit."

Jack looked down at his watch pointedly. "Ianto, it's nearly midnight. That's more than just losing track of time 'a bit'. There's nothing so urgent at the moment that it can't be left until tomorrow."

"I've been trying to compile a list of people and businesses that came to the area in the few months before the Weevil incidents started to increase out of line with the Rift. And any businesses that might have made significant changes or introduced new products around that time, too." Ianto lifted the pile of folders he was holding.

Jack gently took them from his arms and placed them on the corner of the nearest desk - Owen's, he noted distractedly. "And I'm sure all the information will be very useful. Tomorrow."

Gently, he gripped Ianto's shoulders and turned him around, pointing him towards the door. "Go home," he murmured in Ianto's ear. "Get some rest, and you can finish this tomorrow, when Tosh will be here to give you a hand."

"But if I get it finished now, we can…" Ianto's protest was cut off as he yawned into his hand.

"Exactly." Jack nudged him forward. "I'll see you in the morning."

He watched as the cog door rolled closed behind his young colleague a few minutes later. He hoped that he was helping; it had only been a matter of weeks since Lisa's death, but he hated to see Ianto in pain. He knew that burying himself in work was a coping mechanism - one he'd employed himself in the past - but he wasn't entirely sure it was the healthiest way to go about it.

He picked up the pile of folders Ianto had been carrying and took them into his office, flicking idly through them. There were pages of printed information, annotated liberally in Ianto's slightly scrawly hand. However healthy or unhealthy it was, he couldn't deny that Ianto's coping mechanism was getting a lot of work done. He hadn't dared interrupt Ianto in person down in the archives, but he knew that the folders and folders of disorganised paperwork, which had been stored any which way for as long as he could remember, were finally starting to take on some semblance of order.

He sighed and put the papers down. This project, at least, was one he needn't have any worries about. This glove… thing… that Suzie was working on was another matter entirely.

He was curious, intrigued even, about it - he couldn't deny that - but there was something niggling away in the back of his mind that told him there might be something more sinister at work there.

In the search of victims on which the glove might work even better – perhaps even giving them time to actually talk to the deceased – Suzie had suggested they used their monitors of police radio and computer systems to look for murder victims. She had a theory that the more recent and violent the death, the longer the glove would work for. Jack wasn't entirely convinced, but had been unable to find any reasonable - or even unreasonable - argument against the proposal that would stand up to scrutiny. They _did_ need to find out more about how the glove worked, and if this was their best option, it was all he could do to submit to it.


	14. Chapter 14 of 64

"No… They do look rather suspicious, and I don't believe their website for a minute, but the increased activity began nearly a fortnight before they moved their offices here. Even if there was some movement before that - which is likely - anything that could be causing the effect it has on the Weevils would surely be considered important enough to be moved right at the end."

Ianto nodded, his head bent close to Tosh's over her desk. "You're right, it can't be them." He scored them off the list. "There are still too many left on this list though. And I'm not convinced that any of them are likely to be behind this."

"It does seem unlikely," Tosh agreed, shaking her head in dismay.

"No luck, kids?" Jack asked, coming up behind them. Ianto and Tosh had been pouring over a long list and piles of folders all afternoon, ever since Ianto had finished scouring the archives and local databases.

"Nothing," Tosh replied. "None of the businesses or individuals that appeared in the right timescale have anything to distinguish them in such a way as suggests they could be behind this, and any that do just haven't been here for long enough."

"So, despite all the data we have, we're basically still stuck at square one," Jack sighed.

"Not quite," Ianto said, for once the voice of optimism. "We do know, roughly, when it started happening. So, maybe we're on the edge of square two?"

"We need more information on what's actually happening," Tosh stated. "At the moment it's like we're looking for a needle in a haystack. Only we don't know what the needle actually looks like."

Jack folded his arms and smirked, huffing a slight laugh. "Didn't think I'd ever see the day when I was _hoping_ for a Weevil sighting."

Tosh laughed. "I don't think any of us did."

* * *

As such things often go, even though they were waiting on one - and they had occurred more days than not in the previous month - there was no sighting that afternoon. Hence by early evening, Jack was once again attempting to usher his team out of the door. Surprising Jack greatly, even Ianto left without much of an argument; Jack suspected the slight rings that had reappeared under his eyes over the last few days to be more the reason than anything else.

Jack was just settling down for one of his own rare quiet evenings with a long book -this one in particular he had been working on for over a year - when an alarm beeped above him. Dropping the book on his camp bed and scrambling back up the ladder to his office, he flicked on the monitor on his desk.

It took just a few seconds for him to identify the monitor that had been triggered. He scrolled briefly through the information on the screen, digging his mobile out from underneath a pile of scattered papers with his other hand as he did so.

"Suzie? There's been a report of a body found, suspected homicide. If you want your chance to test out this glove, this is it. I'll go down and collect it, then come by and pick you u…"

She interrupted him, and he sighed as she told him she'd rather come by the Hub.

"Fine, but be here in ten minutes."

Hanging up, he wondered for a few seconds as to why she had insisted on coming in to collect the glove herself, before hitting the speed-dial button for Toshiko.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, having picked up both Tosh and Owen from home, they were on their way to the location from the police reports.

"They haven't ID'd the body yet, but he's described as Caucasian, probably early to mid twenties, slight build. And there's a lot of blood, according to the reporting officer," Tosh said from the back seat, reading from the monitors. "Initial impression was a stabbing, so if we wanted violent death I think we have it."

The end of the alley where the body had been found was ablaze with the flashing lights of police cars. Jack pulled up right behind them and the team piled out of the car.

Four words to the officer in charge were all it took for those already examining the scene to be drawn back so Torchwood could get through. Jack knew the local police force didn't like them very much – and they definitely didn't understand them or what they did – but there were enough rumours going around to stop any of them going against Jack's word.

They came to a stop around the body; Suzie and Owen skirted the blood pool to settle near his head while Suzie unpacked the glove. Tosh fiddled with her PDA before pulling out a small video camera.

Jack looked at her in mild confusion as he stood between them and the entrance to the alley, blocking the view of any officers who might be a little too curious.

"If we tape it, we can examine what happens more closely," she explained. "Without having a hysterical dead person to calm down while we do so."

Jack nodded. "Suzie, are you ready?"

She wiggled her fingers inside the glove and closed her eyes for a moment. "Yes, I think so."

Jack looked back at Tosh for a moment, inclining his head slightly to indicate she should start recording. "Right then, here we go."


	15. Chapter 15 of 64

It was a bit of luck, really, that the signal was noticed at all, as not all of the extra citywide scans were being permanently logged.

With their meagre leads tapped out, Ianto and Tosh had abandoned the 'Weevil Project' until more information came in and had returned to working on other, older, projects.

Ianto was once again buried in paperwork in the long row of filling cabinets in the archives, attempting to bring some semblance of order to their chaos, and Tosh was fiddling with a piece of tech she'd been trying to work out on and off for many months.

Ianto was on what he hoped would be the last coffee round of the day, when he noticed the unusual spike of activity on one of Tosh's monitors; Tosh herself wasn't paying them that much attention, her focus on the tech.

He put her mug down and balanced one hip on the corner of her desk, Jack's mug the only one left on the tray he tucked against his other side. "Tosh, should that monitor be reading that?"

Tosh looked up from the device, which had finally started blinking when she expected it to, and scanned the readings on the screen. "No," she answered, shaking her head. "It shouldn't. Something's happening."

She swivelled away from the side of her desk where she'd been working, back to the keyboard. "I'll just try and narrow it down a bit, see if we can figure out where it's originating from." Her fingers flew over the keys as a map of the wider area came up, slowly zooming in as program locked onto the location of the disturbance.

The image had resolved almost to street level when a shout came from Jack's office. "Suzie! Tosh! Owen! Multiple Weevils sighted in Adamstown! We need to move!"

Tosh jumped up, leaving her chair spinning behind her. "Keep an eye on it," she said to Ianto as she shrugged on a light jacket. "It should be able to iterate its own resolution now, at least far enough that we can get the range down to two or three buildings."

Ianto nodded. "And, if it's related to this Weevil incident, it could be the break we've been missing."

"Exactly!" Tosh called as she scurried down to the garage with Jack, Owen and Suzie.

Ianto swung into Tosh's vacated chair and, with one eye on the slowly zooming picture on one monitor, flicked through CCTV images of Adamstown until he found one where the group of Weevils the team were after could be seen.

There were at least three that he could discern easily, and they seemed – at least as far as he could make out from the grainy CCTV image - to be rather agitated and confused.

"Jack," he said into his earpiece. "I've got them on the CCTV; three of them, as far as I can tell, in the park. On the other side from the playing field."

"_Thanks, Ianto,"_ Jack responded. _"Good to know."_

The other computer bleeped at him just as the SUV pulled into frame on the CCTV, drawing Ianto's attention. It had narrowed down the location of the now dissipating energy reading to one of just two buildings - both big businesses.

He typed a few short commands, bringing up local database listings for the two businesses. The first was the head office and clinic for an alternative medicine practice run by a Dr. A Chandler and a Dr. S. Bell. The other was an accountancy firm, 'Laughlin, Davies & Smith'.

Pulling the keyboard closer, he set himself to digging deeper into the recent activities of both companies. One of them was up to _something_, and he was determined to find out which - and what.


	16. Chapter 16 of 64

"There's definitely something not right about their records," Tosh said as she opened yet another folder of supposedly 'secure' files on Chandler and Bell's computer network. "Ever since they started their latest batch of 'innovative' treatments, which _oh_ so coincidentally happens to coincide with our increase in Weevil sightings, there are huge sections of data that have been wiped from their systems. And what is there, a lot of it seems suspect. They're hiding something."

"That's what I thought," Ianto said from behind her, a cup of strong coffee clutched between his palms. It had been late the night before by the time the team had returned with what had turned out to be four Weevils, manoeuvred them out of the SUV and settled them into their new homes in the cells.

Ianto had, by that point, discovered enough through his searches that he was fairly confident it was the alternative medicine practise that was behind the odd signal. But considering the hour, Jack had insisted they leave it until the morning.

There were no reports coming in of any unusual activity around the city other than the Weevils, he'd said, so if the energy pulse had caused anything else, it was probably safe enough to put it off for a few hours while they took the chance to sleep.

Both Ianto and Tosh had allowed the argument and gone home, but both had also been back in the Hub well before 8am that morning, eager to find out if the new data might finally be the key to cracking the mystery they'd devoted so many hours to over the past days.

It hadn't taken long for Tosh to look through all of the information Ianto had gathered the previous night and reach the same conclusion he had; the 'Chandler and Bell' clinic was practising more than just alternative medicine. Within ten minutes of trying, Tosh had hacked into their servers to take a look around.

"Can you recover any of the wiped data?" Jack asked hopefully, half-sitting on the one corner of Owen's desk that wasn't covered in clutter and half-finished paperwork.

Tosh nodded. "If their data deletion is as sloppy as their network security then it should be no problem at all. Might still take a bit of time though, especially if I don't want them to notice what I'm doing."

"I have every faith in you, Tosh," Jack smiled. "Take as much time as you need."

* * *

By mid-afternoon, Tosh was fairly sure she had recovered all of the data it was going to be feasibly possible to recover. Most of the deleted data turned out to be patient records, but crucially – and unexpectedly – even after being recovered, they didn't contain records of any appointments or consultations of any kind during the period in question.

"But why delete their records if they haven't even seen them in six months?" Jack wondered aloud. "What could they possibly be trying to hide?"

Tosh bit her lip thoughtfully and frowned a little.

"What if they _have_ seen them in the last six months, but just deliberately haven't actually put it into the system?" Ianto postulated. Jack and Tosh both gave him looks encouraging him to expound on theory. "I know if _I_ was running a clinic like that and doing something even more 'alternative' than alternative medicine that I wouldn't be putting it into the official system and records."

Jack shook his head. "Still doesn't explain why they wiped the entire patient records, though," he pointed out.

"Plausible deniability."

Tosh's brow furrowed for a second before a light bulb appeared to go on above her head and she smiled, waggling her pen at Ianto. "Something goes wrong, or one of these patients says something they shouldn't to _someone_ they shouldn't, and Chandler and Bell can claim they've never even been a patient there."

Ianto nodded. "Exactly."


	17. Chapter 17 of 64

Jack was beginning to wonder if the gods, or the fates, or whatever was or wasn't out there controlling everything, just didn't want him ever to finish this book.

He had originally planned to go out and pick one of his favourite rooftops to sit on for a while, gazing out at the Cardiff skyline and the evening bustle below. He'd quickly abandoned the idea when the skies had opened, gifting Cardiff with an onslaught of particularly heavy rain.

In the interests of staying warm and dry - because hypothermia was _not_ the most enjoyable way to die - he'd decided he might as well try another quiet evening with a book. His last one, after all, had been interrupted by the unfortunate death of their most recent glove test subject.

He had a strong sense of déjà vu when, the moment he'd settled down – sitting sideways on his camp bed with his back against the wall – there was an insistent beeping from something in his office.

He already had his mobile in hand in preparation before he even climbed out of the hatch into his office. A few moments in front of the computer confirmed his suspicions; it was exactly the same alert as a few nights previously.

Within twenty minutes, the four of them were once again ensconced in the SUV, wipers swishing wildly against the rain, on their way to the scene. It was surrounded once again by blue lights and crime scene tape, but a few strong words in the right ear and the police personnel scattered.

Jack buttoned his coat right to the top as he climbed out of the SUV; at least it might stop the rain trickling down the back of his neck quite so much.

The last few officers from beside the tape dispersed as they swept through; Jack noted absently that they looked as miserable in the rain as he felt.

Even through the rain, the blood pool from the body was still visible on the concrete below their feet. Owen, Tosh and Suzie moved quickly into the same positions they had occupied the last time. Clearly none of them wanted to spend any more time in the downpour than was actually necessary.

Jack stood a little ways off, watching them set up from the corner of his eye as he glared at the clouds above. "I hate the rain," he announced to no one in particular. "And…" He stuck his tongue out. "There's something in it." He stuck his tongue out again, catching several raindrops on it. "I think it's oestrogen. Yep, definitely oestrogen, I can taste it."

He sighed. "You take the pill, flush it away, it enters the water cycle. Feminises the fish. Goes all the way up into the sky, then falls all the way back down… onto me. Contraceptives in the rain; gotta love this planet." He shrugged, realising that the rest of his team wasn't paying attention to him. "Still, at least I won't get pregnant. Never doing that again." He hadn't _meant_ to do it the first time, either.

He turned back to his team, crouched on the ground around the body. "Nearly ready, there?"

Suzie nodded. "Nearly. Just got to wait for it to…" She tensed slightly, just for a fraction of a second, as she and the glove… _connected_.

"Right!" Jack called. "Owen, take over taping for Tosh. Let her try talking to him this time. Since you insisted on telling the last one he was injured and he spent two whole minutes screaming for an ambulance."

"All right, all right," Owen grumbled, swapping places with Tosh. "But I still don't think it's a good idea to tell them that they're dead."

"Well," Jack said. "We can find out."

Suzie placed her hand on the back of the young – _too young_, Jack thought – man's head, and the rain around them seemed to just… stop. Jack glanced around briefly to note that it was still pouring outside their little circle; the glove must have been doing something to stop it over the area around them.

The man gasped as his eyes flew open, swinging around wildly in confusion. "What… where… I was… I was…" He breathed deeply. "I was… oh my God… I was going home! What's happening? Who are you?"

Tosh held up a hand and spoke in a calm voice. "Shhh, just trust me. You're dead."

The man's eyes grew even wilder. "Dead? I can't be dead. How am I dead?"

"You were stabbed," Owen said from behind his head; the young man's eyes rolled back for a moment, trying to see who had spoken.

"I can't be dead," he repeated. "I can see you!"

"You're dead," Tosh said, firmly but gently. "We brought you back, but we only have a couple of minutes. Tell me, did you see anything? Who did this to you?"

"How can I be dead?"

"Please, concentrate," Tosh begged. "What happened? Who attacked you?"

His head twisted in Suzie's hand. "I don't understand! I can't be dead!"

"Just focus on me," Tosh tried calmly. "What did you see?"

"I… I don't know."

"Did you see who attacked you?"

"I was just… I didn't see anything. There was something behind me…"

"The police did say he was stabbed in the back," Owen interjected.

Tosh deflated. "So he didn't see anything." She looked around them. "What do I ask now?" she murmured.

Jack hunkered down beside her, catching the eye of the young man. "Hi. What's your name?"

"John," he stammered. "John Tucker. Who are you?"

"Captain Jack Harkness," Jack introduced himself, a flicker of his trademark grin ghosting over his face as he said it. "What was it like? What did you see, when you died?"

A look of horror came over John's face.

"What did you see?" Jack repeated.

"Nothing," John said, the panic beginning to reappear in his voice. "Oh God, there was nothing!"

His eyes rolled back in his head and his body slumped, the rain starting to fall over them again as the last of the life left him.

"Just over two minutes," Suzie said quietly. "About the same as last time."

"What was that all about?" Owen asked, staring at Jack as all of them bar Suzie got to their feet.

"We had to ask him something!" Jack retorted. He didn't mention that he had wondered if what he saw after death was different to everyone else; if his immortality had changed that for him too.

"I still think it was a stupid idea to tell him he was dead," Owen grumbled.

"Well, we don't really have many options," Tosh pointed out.

"Maybe there _is_ no right way to go about this," Jack said, shrugging a little.

A flash of luminescent yellow caught his eye from above and he glanced up, catching a glimpse of a head looking over the edge of the multi-storey car park beside them.

"What do you think?" he yelled up, unsurprised to see the head disappear as the woman ran off.

The others sharply followed his gaze. "Shit," Owen said succinctly. "How much do you think she saw?"

"My guess would be everything," Jack replied, watching Suzie pack up the glove. "And in a couple of days she'll have convinced herself that she imagined it." He shifted his shoulders, shrugging water off. "If I'm wrong and she proves to be trouble, we'll deal with it."


	18. Chapter 18 of 64

"We've got an energy reading on whatever it is at Chandler and Bell again!" Tosh called as the beep from her computer distracted her from her latest piece of tech examination. "Do we want to try and get out there to do more detailed scans from close up, or should we wait just for the Weevil sighting to crop up?"

"I doubt we'll have time to get out there and do much scanning before we get word of Weevils, but we can try," Jack said, standing up from his desk. "But we'll have to leave now."

He picked up his coat on the way out of his office. "Owen, Suzie! Be ready to go in two minutes!" He tapped his earpiece. "Ianto? We're going to try to catch this signal at Chandler and Bell. Could you come down and keep an eye out for Weevil incidents? Re-sorting the Tourist Office can wait a little longer."

* * *

Ianto stepped through the cog door, a small box under his arm, just in time for Jack to turn around on his way down to the garage to yell, "Keep us posted!"

Knowing that the others had the energy signal at the alternative medicine clinic in hand, he ignored that monitor and used the others to keep an eye on the police feeds and a selection of feeds from CCTV cameras in popular Weevil locations.

He set the box on the desk and removed the pad and pen from the top of it, picking up where he'd left off upstairs in the pile of possibly outdated leaflets and brochures. The Information Office had been ignored too long, he'd decided that morning. And even though it was rarely used for anything except accepting fast food deliveries, the occasional bit of effort was required to keep it functional-appearing enough that it could be open more if required.

He was several leaflets through the pile - with three added to his list of those that should probably be updated soon - when something caught his eye as the CCTV monitor flicked to a new location.

He hit a few keys, switching back to the previous one. Yes, those were definitely Weevils; it was hard to mistake them for anything else in the broad daylight, even on the edge of a small wood as they were.

"Weevils in Bute Park. At least two of them," he reported to the others. "There isn't anyone around the area at the moment, but I wouldn't count on it staying that way for very long."

"_Right, okay, Ianto. We're on our way,"_ said Jack, a slight squeal from the SUV in the background suggesting he had just swung it into a U-turn.

* * *

Chasing Weevils through trees, Jack thought, always somehow seemed to take an awful lot longer than chasing them through streets and alleyways – and even sewers. Nearly an hour later, they finally had both Weevils rounded up and were hauling them back to the SUV when Ianto's voice came over the comms. again, sounding apologetic. _"I know you're still busy with the Weevils in Bute Park, but there's been a spike in Rift Activity over the main road at St Helen's Hospital. From the height, it would appear to be on the top floor, which, luckily, is an administration and storage area that has been closed off for the last few days for refurbishment."_

The four exchanged glances. "Once we get back to the SUV, you three take whatever you need and go check out the disturbance at the hospital," Jack said decisively. "I'll get these two loaded into the back and come find you."

He had just slammed the boot shut when Owen's voice was in his ear. _"Think we've got a newly arrived Weevil up here." _He sounded a little out of breath. _"But this place is as bad as our archives; it's like a bloody rabbit's warren. We just seem to be chasing the thing in circles."_

"The two down here are all loaded up," Jack replied, grabbing an extra can of Weevil spray and setting off at a run. "I'll be there in a minute."

* * *

He took several flights of stairs at a mad dash, climbing through a door of thick plastic sheeting at the top into the closed off area. There were dustsheets draped over various pieces of furniture in rooms he jogged past and through as he looked for the rest of his team and the elusive Weevil.

A pained scream, that didn't sound like it had come from any of his team members, had him racing back towards the way he'd come in. He found the Weevil with its teeth buried in the throat of an unfortunate man, with a woman standing frozen a few feet away as she watched in horror.

Owen, Tosh and Suzie appeared barely a second later to subdue the Weevil and, as he hustled the woman out of there, he suddenly noticed that he recognised her face. He'd only seen it briefly the night before, but it was definitely the young police officer that had spotted them from the multi-story car park.

They might just have to do something about her after all.


	19. Chapter 19 of 64

With all three Weevils safely stowed unconscious in the back, along with the body of the unfortunately unlucky hospital porter, Jack put his foot down and the SUV sped out of the hospital car park.

Jack looked behind them moments later and swore mildly under his breath.

"Ianto," he said, tapping his comms., "it looks like we might have picked ourselves up a tail. I don't want to lead her straight to our garage, so I'm going to go over the Plass. Can you be up on the invisible lift in five minutes and take over the SUV? I'm hoping that if we stop there it will be enough to distract her for long enough that you can get down to the garage without her following."

"_Of course. I'll see you in a few minutes."

* * *

_

"She's still there," Owen called out, a touch of incredulity in his voice. "Wandering around the water tower looking confused."

The three Weevils were down in the cells, the body of the porter had been put into cold storage, and Tosh had hacked into the hospital network to sort out a cover-up story for his death.

With the others all engrossed once more in their own personal projects, Owen had decided he would take it upon himself to keep an eye on their curious copper.

"Well, wouldn't you?" Jack said, lifting his head from the report he was grumbling his way through. "As far as she knows, four people disappeared into thin air, and then an SUV drove off all by itself. I'd certainly be more than a little confused."

He threw his pen onto his desk and came to stand by Owen, watching the CCTV of the Plass over Owen's shoulder. "She's certainly persistent, though. She's been there, what, nearly thirty-five minutes, now?"

"Closer to forty," Owen replied. "She must be really bloody curious to wander about for forty minutes in the rain, even if it _is_ only drizzle at the moment."

"As I said," Jack nodded. "Persistent."

They were still watching when, fifteen minutes later, after she had finally given in to the rain and climbed into her squad car, a young red-haired officer walked up and climbed in beside her and they drove off.

"She'll be back," Jack said with an air of certainty. "Just wait and see; she'll be back."

* * *

Unsurprisingly, Jack was right. A couple of hours later, just when Jack had been about to suggest to the others that they might want to head home - get an early finish so they could start bright and early the next morning - there she was again.

It was cold for a summer's night, and the drizzly rain from earlier that day was still on and off, but it didn't seem to be putting her off.

She wandered around and around the water tower, clearly looking for any clue as to where they could have disappeared to – and how. She walked right over the top of the invisible lift more than once, even standing stock still on it for several minutes on one occasion. Jack had been half tempted to activate it, just to see the look on her face.

"Tosh!" he called, after the woman had been walking around for about half an hour. "Do we have enough CCTV footage to run her through the face recognition program? Make it easier to keep an eye on her activities if we get an ID."

"More than enough," Tosh replied. "Especially as we know she's a police officer. That narrows the search down considerably."

Jack nodded. "Do it."

Tosh shrugged one shoulder and leant back in her chair. "I…ah, already did, actually. Earlier this afternoon. Her name's Gwen Cooper. Been on the force a couple years now, boss thinks she has potential to go far. Lives with a man…" She opened a window and leant forward again in her seat to read it. "Rhys Williams. I'm assuming a boyfriend, considering it's a one bedroom flat."

"What about…?"

Tosh cut him off. "I already have a tap set up on both the home phone and her mobile, and an intercept on her computer."

Jack shook his head a little and smiled at her. "That's my Toshiko. I should have known."

Tosh smiled back. "Yes, you really should."

* * *

Although they all had plenty of work that could keep them occupied for a few extra hours, watching the CCTV cameras began, as the evening grew later, to become a more and more attractive option, and they somehow ended up congregated around Tosh's workstation.

"She must be freezing by now, the poor girl," Ianto said as he passed out coffees while he was temporarily down from his restock of the Tourist Office. "She's been out there for how long now, two hours?"

The others nodded, sipping the hot coffee gratefully.

While they all watched, something caught the woman's eye and she strode off, looking purposeful.

"I just have a couple more things to get sorted upstairs," Ianto said, slipping away and stashing his tray on the coffee table on his way to the door. "Let me know if she comes back."

Tosh nodded and flipped through a few different cameras from around the Plass and the surrounding streets.

"Where'd she disappear to?" Owen mused aloud, leaning back on his chair.

Tosh's brow furrowed as she went back through the cameras. "I don't know. She must have gone into one of the shops, or…" She glanced down at her watch. "At this hour, more likely a take-away. Guess she got hungry."

When she didn't reappear in the next ten minutes, they all started to lose interest, drifting back towards their own desks and the tasks they had been busying themselves with most of the afternoon and evening.

Just under fifteen minutes later, Tosh cried out. "Aha! Found her!"

Jack looked up. "Where is she?"

"Back on the Plass," Tosh replied. "And she has…" She squinted a little behind her glasses and leant towards the monitor. "Pizza. Two of them. I'm guessing they're not both for her so…" She nodded to herself. "Yes. She seems to be heading towards the Quay."

Jack grinned. "Persistent _and_ resourceful." He winked. "Sounds like my kind of girl. Although…" He looked around at them. "Who's been ordering pizza under the name Torchwood? 'Cause that's the only way this works for her."

Owen bit his lip and raised his hand. "Yeah, sorry, that would be me. I'm a twat."

Jack shook his head at him despairingly.

He picked up his comms. and slipped it on. "Ianto? Can you hear me?" His smile grew wider at Ianto's response and he flicked one of the CCTV windows on his monitor to the Tourist Office. "I think you might be about to have a visitor."


	20. Chapter 20 of 64

"_What would you like me to do with her when she gets here?"_ Ianto's voice was soft as he made the query.

A little voice in the very back of Jack's mind, one that was oft ignored, whispered a suggestion; Jack brushed it away and told the little voice that _that_ was highly inappropriate. "She's carrying a couple of boxes of pizza." He grinned, despite the fact that Ianto couldn't see it. "Let her come down deliver it to us."

He watched as Ianto nodded and went to unlock the front door. _"Okay."_

"You're letting her into the Hub?" Suzie asked, looking up from her worktable.

Jack nodded. "Of course." He could feel the other three staring at him. "You can't honestly think that, after all that she's seen in the last two days, she's just going to find the Tourist Office and give up?"

"Well, no, but…" Owen started.

"This way, she comes down, we assuage her curiosity… and then I take her out for a nice drink with a tiny dash of Retcon." Jack shrugged. "Everybody wins."

"So, she comes down here and we, what?" Owen asked. "Tell her everything? Give her the guided tour?"

Jack nodded. "Well, more or less, yes. But first, I was thinking we do nothing, and let her deliver that pizza. Well, assuming there _is_ actually pizza in the boxes."

"Nothing?" Suzie said, her eyebrows lifting.

"Nothing," Jack confirmed. "Well, not _nothing _nothing, but 'looking like you're working' nothing. She comes down, hands over the pizza… and I'll figure it out from there."

"So we just ignore her?" Tosh asked, frowning a little.

Jack grinned madly. "Exactly." None of them looked too convinced. "Come on, guys. It'll be fun!"

He could see their shoulders moving in an almost simultaneous sigh as they all indicated their acceptance of the plan.

"She's almost at the door," Tosh noted, looking back at the CCTV picture from the Quay.

Jack turned up the sound on the internal feed from the Tourist Office and maximised it to a full screen.

As the young woman – Gwen, he reminded himself – pushed open the door and entered, he realised that Ianto had disappeared. Gwen was also evidently fairly confused at finding herself in what appeared to be an abandoned office.

Ianto reappeared a few seconds later, a fresh cup of coffee in hand – Jack knew he kept a kettle and a small cafetière in the little storage room along with the variety of leaflets he used to make the Information Office look authentic.

"_Oh, hiya. Sorry, I'm late. Someone ordered pizza?"_

Jack grinned wryly as Ianto smiled innocently at her. _"Who's it for?"_

"_I think it's…a Mr Harkness."_ Gwen Cooper, whatever else she was, wasn't the best actress in the world, Jack noted.

Ianto nodded, and with a couple of smooth button presses, the hidden doorway to the Hub was opened.

Gwen looked around, clutching the pizza boxes and looking hesitant.

"_Don't keep them waiting."_ Ianto encouraged her through the doors, and even after she disappeared from the coverage of the CCTV camera, Jack could see Ianto urging her on.

"Alright, everyone," he called out as he flipped off the monitor, "find something to do!"

Pulling out the paperwork he'd actually been working on earlier that evening, he concentrated on looking studious and tried to think up something witty to say when Gwen finally handed over the pizza.

The alarm and flashing lights as the cog door and the gates automatically closed over behind her alerted him to the fact that their curious young copper was now 'in the building', as they said.

Glancing up carefully, without raising his head, he could see her standing stock still next to the doors, looking around in wonder while the rest of his team worked on around her. After a very long moment, she finally climbed the short flight of steps up to the office area and headed towards him.

There was a muffled snort from somewhere around Owen and Tosh's desks. The snort was followed by a badly disguised giggle, and then an even louder snort.

"I can't do this! I'm sorry!" Owen called, swivelling on his chair and leaning back. "I'm rubbish, I give up!"

Tosh giggled aloud and turned to point accusingly at Owen. "He set me off!" Owen glared heatlessly at her, only serving to make her giggle again.

Suzie stood up and threw her hands in the air as she turned to them. "Well that lasted all of nought point two seconds!"

"I'm sorry!" Owen repeated.

Jack threw his pen down and shook his head, standing up to walk around his desk. "Come on, she was going to come over and say, 'Here's your pizza,' and then I would have said, 'All right, how much?' and then she makes something up and says, 'Oh, twenty quid,' or whatever, and then, well, I don't know what I would have said. I was working on a punch line. I'd have got there. And it would've been good."

Gwen just blinked at them as Suzie started over towards them. "I… uh… here's your pizza. I think I should probably go."

Jack fixed her with a look. "I think we've gone way past that point, don't you?"

"You must be freezing," Suzie said, coming up behind her. "You were out there walking around for what, two hours? Three?"

"You could see me?" Gwen said, nervously. "You've been watching me?"

"Ever since you followed us back this afternoon and started wandering around the water tower, yes," Suzie replied.

"That man at the hospital, that porter," Gwen started, her eyes flicking between them. "What happened to him? I didn't imagine that, did I? He _was_ attacked."

"He's dead," Jack told her bluntly.

She shook her head. "But no one's gone missing. We checked."

"We took the body, retrospectively changed the work rota, planted a witness statement that says he left the hospital, thus giving him an alibi for the next forty-eight hours, so when he's pulled from the docks next Monday, he's only been missing for three days," Tosh said matter-of-factly.

Gwen stared. "He was murdered, and you covered it up."

Tosh nodded. "It's part of my job."

Gwen looked more than a little bit disturbed by this fact. "And what about that other man, John Tucker, in the alley last night. I saw you there, I saw you…"

Jack took a step forward. "And what _did_ you see."

"You revived him."

Jack shook his head. Clearly, her brain was still trying too hard to fit things into something she could understand, something that didn't require accepting the madness that was Torchwood. "No. What did you _see_?"

"You resuscitated him."

He took another step forward. That was even worse.

"No." He spoke slowly, clearly enunciating each word separately. "What. Did. You. See?"

"You… brought him back to life."

He nodded and allowed himself to smile just a little. "Yeah."

She stared up at him, wide-eyed. "Who are you?"

"Torchwood," he smirked.

"But what's Torchwood?"

He swept an arm around behind him. "This is Torchwood, all around you. _We're_ Torchwood."

"And what about me?" she asked, nerves starting to show through again. "What are you… you can't do anything to me. I'm police constable Gwen Cooper, you… can't do anything."

Jack chewed on his lip as he regarded the young woman, still gripping the pizza boxes, and wondered if she really believed they would just get rid of her and cover it up, just because she'd discovered them. Although, he had to admit, back in the very early days - long, _long_ before she'd been born - she would have been right.

"Right then, PC Cooper, come and see."

"Come see what?"

"You saw the murder, come see the murderer."

Turning around, Jack strode off towards the cells. There was a scream a few seconds later as Myfanwy dove down to investigate their visitor, and he could just make out Tosh's flat assertion that yes, she _was_ actually a pterodactyl.

"Come on!" he yelled back. "And the rest of you, don't eat all the pizza!"


	21. Chapter 21 of 64

Ianto was clearing away the last of the pizza boxes – which, despite Jack's yelled request, were empty – when Jack and Gwen reappeared. She looked just a little overwhelmed, and Ianto guessed she was probably still digesting the confirmation she'd just received about there being life on other planets.

"Gwen Cooper, Owen Harper," Jack announced as he hopped up the steps, swinging an arm in Owen's direction.

"Oi!" Owen protested. "That's _Doctor_ Owen Harper, thank you very much."

Jack shook his head at Owen. "Yeah, yeah." He twisted around. "Toshiko Sato, computer genius. And Suzie Costello, my second in command." He gestured over to where Suzie had returned to her study of the glove.

Ianto had just dropped the last box into a black bag when Jack turned around to point him out to Gwen. "And this is Ianto Jones. Ianto, well, Ianto does everything _else_ around here; looks after our archives, cleans up after us, makes sure we get things done on time." He smiled at Ianto warmly.

"Don't forget, I also make the coffee," Ianto said matter-of-factly, knowing that despite everything else he did, keeping them caffeinated was probably almost the highest priority.

Jack's smile grew wider. "Heaven forbid I forget the coffee." He turned to Gwen. "Ianto makes what has to be the best coffee on the planet." The smile was still in place as he turned back far enough so Ianto could see his face. "And he shows us all up by turning up every day looking mighty fine in one of his suits."

Ianto felt an odd, unexplainable spark burst into life inside of him and he found himself smiling back. "You know, I'm not entirely sure, but I think that might count as harassment."

Jack laughed. "Remind me tomorrow and I'll find you the paperwork."

Gwen blinked at them as they all laughed gently, clearly confused. "Why are you telling me their names? I'm not supposed to know any of this. This is all classified, isn't it?"

Jack's chuckle tapered off. "_Way_ beyond classified."

Gwen shook her head, taking a step back. "Then you shouldn't be telling me. What are you going to do to me?"

Jack smirked. "What do you imagine?"

Gwen stammered a little. "Well… I've seen too much, and you've told me your names, and there was that Weevil, and you can dump a man in the water and lie about his death…"

She was still backing away from them, very slowly, and Ianto could see that she clearly really believed that they would actually do something dreadful to her. While Retcon wasn't the nicest thing to experience, given the mild disorientation caused by even a small period of memories being erased, it was certainly a lot less drastic than what appeared to be going through Gwen's mind.

Jack swung around and ducked into his office as Ianto bent down to tie up the black bin bag.

"Owen!" Jack said, sliding into his coat. "First thing tomorrow, I want you to go pay a visit to our new friends, Chandler and Bell. We need those treatment records so Tosh can correlate them with the Weevil reports. We'll need to go in and deal with this tech that has fallen into their hands eventually, but if it turns out it's _not_ behind the Weevil problem, it can wait a bit, since it doesn't appear to be having any other ill effects. Tosh, see if you can pull anything more from those servers. I know it's a long shot, but have a look."

Ianto was about to walk off to take the bag of rubbish down to be incinerated when Jack called his name. "Ianto, I want you with Owen tomorrow morning. Let him do the talking when it comes to the medical stuff, but you know the case better than any of us."

He swept past them and jogged down the steps. "Suzie! I want a report on the latest glove research tomorrow afternoon, and I know it's a pain, but include a costing on whatever research is left."

Gwen was still standing where he'd left her, a worried look on her face. "As for you," he said, pointing towards her. "You're coming with me."

* * *

Within minutes, the rest of the team and Gwen had vacated the Hub, Gwen clinging nervously to Jack's arm as he showed off the invisible lift, leaving Ianto to finish his clean up in peace.

The Tourist Office wasn't the only place he'd neglected a little in the last weeks; for the most part he'd chosen to bury himself in the sorting work in the archives rather than concentrate on cleaning up around the Hub, and the rest of them still weren't exactly the best at tidying up after themselves.

He had just cleared away the final collection of junk, and was standing back to survey what might be left to do, when there was a buzzing in his pocket from his comm. unit.

Plucking it out, he slipped it onto his ear and tapped it on to receive. "Yes?"

"_Ianto, are you still at the Hub?"_ He could hear the faint sound of traffic below Jack's voice.

"Yes, why?"

"_I'm on my way back now, but I need you to log into the intercept on Gwen's home computer. I reckon she'll try to save as much information as she can before she passes out from the Retcon. All I need you to do is delete it."_

Ianto nodded to himself, already hopping up the steps to a computer. "Delete all information she tries to save on Torchwood," he repeated. "Can do."


	22. Chapter 22 of 64

Owen and Ianto sat in the SUV a little way down the street from Chandler and Bell's clinic early the following morning. Owen fidgeted a bit in the smart shirt and trousers he'd been persuaded to don for this particular mission and rubbed at his slightly bleary eyes.

"I think I was expecting something a little more… imposing," Ianto said mildly, regarding the flat-roofed two-storey building with curiosity.

Owen shook his head. "These alternative medicine places rarely are – they try to go for the more modern 'friendly' type look instead." He rolled his shoulders and glanced over at Ianto. "You got that list of patients?"

Ianto nodded, and shot Owen a look that implied his disbelief that Owen was even _asking_. "Of course I do."

"Right then."

The SUC beeped, the doors locking behind them, as they strode across the road together.

The receptionist smiled up at them when they entered the brightly lit foyer.

"Good morning… Bethan," Owen said, plastering a polite smile onto his face and leaning over a little to read her name badge. "We're from the Department of Health; new policy of spot checks just been introduced across the board. I'm going to need to have a look around."

He flashed the ID card Tosh had knocked up for him that morning before they left.

The receptionist, who didn't look much older than about twenty, seemed flustered, and shuffled the papers on the desk in front of her nervously.

"I don't know," she said, shaking her head a little. "Dr. Chandler and Dr. Bell might not…"

"Sorry," Owen interrupted, "but it's not optional. Refusal would look very bad in our reports. You can have someone escort us around, if you really insist, but we're in a bit of a hurry, got a few more places to see today, so if you could find someone quickly…"

Eyes wide, the girl swallowed hard and nodded. "Go right through," she stuttered. "Although, Dr. Bell isn't in yet, and Dr. Chandler is with a patient so you can't disturb him."

Owen and Ianto shared a brief glance; surely this was too easy. "Thank you," Ianto smiled at Bethan. "We'll be out of your hair in no time."

They found a door discretely marked with the words 'Records' not too far down the first hallway.

"Okay," Owen murmured quietly to Ianto, "this really _is_ too easy."

Ianto nodded. "I know that Tosh said they did a sloppy job of their computer security, but it seems their actual security isn't a whole lot better." He shook his head. "Surprising, considering what we think they have here."

They pushed open the door, not feeling particularly surprised when it wasn't locked.

"Right." Owen looked around at the shelves of box-files. "So, where do we start?"

Ianto glanced sideways at him. "Perhaps you should just leave this part to me? I've seen your attempts with paperwork and filing, and we're trying not to make it obvious we've been rifling through here."

Owen nodded. "Good thinking."

With the help of a small gadget Tosh had been working on for a few weeks, all the relevant data from the important files was recorded pretty quickly and they left the records room.

Just for appearances, they made a cursory sweep of the other rooms along that corridor. The receptionist looked relieved beyond measure when they smiled genially at her on the way out and told her they had everything they needed.

****

"Whatever they have, it's definitely causing the Weevil outbreaks," Tosh said, sitting back in her chair and pushing the keyboard back. "Almost every single appointment with all of the patients who have had their records deleted coincides with a Weevil incident. And those that don't, all have special notations on their records."

"Do we know what they're actually doing with whatever it is they have?" Jack asked, standing behind her. "What they're… treating?"

Tosh shook her head. "Not a clue. None of the symptoms the patients came to the clinic complaining of match up with each other. At least, the ones written in the records don't."

"Peculiar," Ianto commented, his brow furrowing in thought.

"Any of them got any appointments coming up in the next few days?" Jack asked. "I think it's time we staged a little intervention."

Tosh scrolled through the saved records. "Evan Smith. Got an appointment in… about forty minutes, actually."

Jack clapped his hands together. "Perfect. Owen, Suzie, be ready if there are reports of Weevils. Tosh, you're coming with me." He grinned. "We're going to pay the nice doctor a little visit."


	23. Chapter 23 of 64

It was almost anticlimactic how simple dealing with the alternative medicine clinic turned out to be.

No one was killed – no one was even _injured_ - and Jack didn't even get to throw his weight around or yell at anyone.

He and Tosh simply went in, confronted Dr. Chandler, and within twenty minutes were in possession of the alien device. Jack was almost suspicious at quite how easy it had been. He didn't give them too much information about the true origins of the device, and decided to leave them un-Retconned. He only hoped he wouldn't regret that decision later.

Tosh carefully turned the device over in her hands as they drove back to the Hub. "However did they discover that, if used in a certain way, it was effective in long-term pain management?" she mused aloud, twisting it one way then the other. "It's not even immediately obvious how to switch it on."

Jack glanced over briefly, one eye staying on the road in front of them. "Trial and error, I imagine. It's just a pity that a side effect of the useful application of it was that it disturbed the Weevils enough to bring them to the surface. I know Owen would love it if we had something better than jamming us full of pills every time there's a serious injury."

Tosh turned the artefact over once more. "Well, Suzie and I can have a look at it, see what we can do. Maybe we'll be able to separate the two effects out somehow, just keep the useful one."

She could see Jack's grin in profile as the SUV sped around a corner. "If anyone can do it," he said sincerely, "you can."

***

Tosh spent the better part of the afternoon fiddling with the yet-to-be-named device. As per Jack's request, she was careful not to activate the precise setting that Chandler and Bell had been using.

They hadn't been quite fast enough to deactivate it in the clinic earlier in the day, so by the time they returned to the Hub, Ianto had been alone, with Owen and Suzie out rounding up the pair of Weevils that had surfaced in Adamstown.

Now that they finally had the elusive tech in their grasp, they all hoped the frequency of Weevil incidents would be drastically reduced.

Tosh was so engrossed in the project she barely noticed time passing until Jack's hand fell upon her shoulder hours later. "Looks like another quiet night, Tosh," he said quietly. "Owen and Suzie have already gone. Take a break and come back with fresh eyes."

She was shocked to realise, when she looked at her watch, that it was nearly 8pm. Gathering her things, she hurried for the door, pondering which take-away to hit on the way home.

***

Jack signed the final report from the pile on his desk with a flourish as he sensed Ianto's appearance at his office door. He had considered heading down to the archives to dig Ianto out and send him home immediately after he had ushered Toshiko out the door, but had opted to finish some paperwork and see if Ianto would appear on his own first.

He hoped it was a good sign that it was barely half an hour later and there Ianto was, a single mug of coffee in hand and his suit jacket back on. "Heading out?" he asked mildly.

Ianto nodded. "I noticed everyone else is gone, so I thought I should probably make a move home before you decided it would be necessary to push me out the door."

There was just the faintest hint of a wry grin on Ianto's face as he spoke and Jack couldn't help but smile in response. "I was going to give you another half hour," he said, his tone jovial even though he meant the words.

Ianto turned as if to go. "Ianto," Jack called softly, halting him. "How… how are you?"

Ianto spun back around to face him, leaning on the doorframe. "I'm…" He paused, looking thoughtful for a moment. "I'm doing okay, actually." He looked mildly surprised at the realisation.

"I've been thinking of moving," he continued a few seconds later. "I know it's not like Lisa ever even saw my current flat, but I just…" He shook his head. "I feel like the whole place is connected to her death, somehow. I kept promising myself I would move somewhere nicer when Lisa was better, and now… I think it's the right thing to do."

Jack stood up and rounded his desk, coming to a stop just in front of Ianto. "If you think it's the right thing to do, for you, then it's the right thing to do. And remember, if you need any help with finding somewhere or moving, you know I'll be there in an instant."

Ianto nodded, and a grateful smile managed to break through. "Thanks, Jack. I know."

He was just turning to leave again when something on the CCTV monitor caught his eye.

"Jack, I think you might want to come see this."


	24. Chapter 24 of 64

Jack shook his head, blinking a few times as he tried to be sure that he was seeing what he thought he was seeing. "That's…"

"Our curious cop, yes," Ianto nodded, standing beside him.

"I know I didn't give her the strongest dose of Retcon I could have," Jack said, frowning slightly, "but it should definitely have been enough that she wouldn't still be poking around here. I don't know what could have triggered her to break it."

Ianto shrugged a little. "No idea, sir." He ducked his head a little closer to the monitor. "But… is that Suzie?"

Jack bent down next to him. "Yeah, it is. What's _she_ doing there? I thought she went home."

"Evidently not," Ianto said, watching the movements on the screen closely.

They watched in silence for a few moments as Gwen and Suzie talked. Both startled and stood up a bit when Suzie pulled out a large multi-edged knife.

"Woah," Jack said. "Where did she get _that_? And why does it look familiar?"

"I think it was in that box of things I brought up from the archives for her weeks ago," Ianto said, thinking. "The stuff that came in around the same time as the glove."

Jack was shaking his head again, clearly worried. "I don't like the look of this." He edged towards his office, not taking his eyes off the monitor as he grabbed his coat. "Something isn't right here."

His hunch was proved right when moments later, Suzie pulled out her gun, pointing it straight at Gwen's head.

Ianto felt the rush of air across his back as Jack swept past, slipping into his coat as he hopped up onto the invisible lift. "What are you going to do?" he asked, tearing his eyes from the CCTV for a moment to look over at Jack.

Jack shrugged as he pressed the buttons on his wriststrap to send the lift up. "I don't know. I'll figure something out, but I need to do _something_."

Ianto transferred his gaze back to the monitor as the lift rose. The cameras weren't at a particularly good angle to catch Jack's face as the lift rose to the surface level, so Ianto couldn't see if he said anything as he came into view.

Suzie appeared to be getting more and more agitated as she waved the gun around at Gwen. Ianto knew he hadn't been the most observant person in the last months, too caught up in his own troubles, and he began to wonder if something had been going on with Suzie that no one had noticed.

He squinted a little, trying to work out quite what was going on, and then suddenly the gun swung around. He flinched; the sound of the gun discharging didn't reach him deep underground in the Hub, but he felt like it did. He could almost feel the impact of the bullet himself as Jack crumpled to the ground so far above him.

"He'll be fine," he murmured to himself. "Just fine. Don't panic. He can't stay dead. Remember that."

He took several deep, calming breaths and focused once more on the action on the screen. Suzie was once again pointing the gun at Gwen, and he wondered if he had time to get out of the Tourist Office entrance and around onto the Plass in time to stop her; using the invisible lift option was obviously out.

Even if he ran flat out he knew he wouldn't make it – his only choice was to hope that Jack would… wake up? Come around? Resurrect? He wasn't quite sure what to call it, but he hoped that Jack did it soon; soon enough to stop Suzie doing something terrible.

For a moment, just a moment, it looked like he was going to be too late, and then Jack stood up.

Ianto breathed a sigh of relief as Jack held out his hand to Suzie. Surely, now, she would hand over the gun, Jack would bring her back down to the Hub and they would figure out what was going on, returning things to normal.

But then Suzie brought the gun to her chin and pulled the trigger.


	25. Chapter 25 of 64

Ianto startled out of his frozen shock as his mobile rang in his jacket pocket. "Hello?"

"_Hi."_ Ianto frowned, wondering why Jack had _phoned_ him, looking up to check on the CCTV that Jack was in fact holding his phone to his ear. _"Sorry, forgot to pick up my comms. on the way out,"_ Jack continued, answering Ianto's unspoken question. _"Could you come up round the Tourist Office and take Gwen down with you? I think she might need a mug of hot sugary tea while I… deal with this."_

Ianto nodded, realising a second later that Jack, of course, couldn't see him, and assenting verbally.

***

Gwen clung to his arm as they made their way from the Plass down to the Quay and the Information Office, leaving the invisible lift free for Jack to use while he worked out how to deal with Suzie.

Jack had murmured that she remembered everything as he passed Gwen over to Ianto, but from her reactions, Ianto wouldn't have been able to guess that just the night before she had seen all the peculiarities of this entrance to the Hub.

He almost had to prise her fingers from his forearm as he settled her onto the Hub's ratty sofa, digging an even rattier Afghan from down the back to wrap around her shoulders. She was already beginning to shiver slightly, a clear sign that shock was starting to set in.

He heard the invisible lift begin to lower as he stood in the tiny kitchen area, waiting for the kettle to boil for the tea. He didn't turn around, knowing what he would see, and hoped that Gwen was too distracted to notice it.

The kettle clicked, and he put more concentration than was really required into pouring hot water into the waiting mug and adding copious quantities of sugar. Similarly, he studiously ignored the central area of the Hub as he returned to the sofa with it, placing it gently in Gwen's shaky hands and encouraging her to take a sip.

"I've called Tosh and Owen back in," Jack said from behind him some time later - Ianto wasn't sure how long. When he turned around he was relieved to note that Suzie's body wasn't in sight. He assumed it was either in cold storage or the autopsy bay, but he didn't want to ask; he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

Jack took a few steps forward until he was standing in front of the sofa. "We need to discuss what happened here tonight, where we go from this." Ianto nodded, one eye still on Gwen's huddled form beside him.

"She really was going to shoot me, wasn't she?" Gwen's voice was barely more than a whisper.

Jack nodded. "Yes, she was. But she didn't." Ianto wasn't sure Gwen was actually hearing the words at all.

The silence that fell over them was broken by the entry alarm as the cog door rolled back, revealing both Owen and Toshiko. Both looked grim, leaving Ianto in no doubt that Jack had given them at least the basics of the situation over the phone.

They clambered the stairs wearily and joined them gathered around the sofa; neither looked particularly surprised to see Gwen there.

"So what happened?" Owen asked, sighing as he leant on the edge of Tosh's desk.

"The glove," Jack said darkly. "It got inside her head, starting nudging at her, pushing her towards the darkness. I… I think she's been going quietly insane for quite some time, and none of us even noticed." He looked up at the wall behind the sofa, above their heads. "We never even realised that anything with her had changed."

Ianto swallowed. "You've all spent so much time helping me instead," he said quietly, feeling a little guilty as he realised that, if it hadn't been for him and Lisa, it was likely that none of this would have happened to Suzie.

Jack sighed again and tilted his head at Ianto. "You're right, we have been," he admitted. "But that's not your fault," he added a second later, firmly. "Looking out for you when you needed it shouldn't have precluded us from keeping Suzie in the loop too."

He bit the inside of his cheek and settled his shoulders. "No, I'm the boss. This is my fault, I should have caught this before it got this far." He looked around at them. "Which is why I made that request on the phone. Any unauthorised items you may have taken home to work on, no matter how innocuous you _think_ they are, bring them to my office now."

He twisted on his heel and strode into his office, Tosh and Owen grabbing the bags they'd come in with and following him. Ianto looked over to Gwen again before getting up to follow; she still seemed to be in a bit of a daze, barely noticing their departure. He couldn't really blame her; just a few hours ago she'd been on the dangerous end of a loaded gun, and had then seen Jack shot and his subsequent resurrection. It was enough to overload anyone.

By the time he reached Jack's office, Tosh and Owen had unloaded a tiny collection of generally harmless items onto his desk, to join the glove and the knife Suzie had been using.

Jack handed him a secure containment box and leant against the back wall while Ianto carefully stored the more dangerous items in it, locking it and clearly marking it as not for future use. The items Owen and Tosh had returned would probably – eventually – make their way down to the archives, but the knife and glove belonged in the more secure section of the archives, and that was in the corner of Jack's office.

Jack had partially handed over the responsibility for the secure archives shortly after Ianto had begun his mammoth task of organising the main archive, and Ianto was fairly sure – and still slightly surprised at his own certainty - as he entered the combination that he was the only one had been taken into this confidence.

"What are we going to do about her?" he heard Tosh ask quietly as he pushed the box back and swung the door closed.

Jack's voice was just as low, neither of them, obviously, wanting the woman in question to overhear. "I was considering offering her a job, actually."


	26. Chapter 26 of 64

There had been a quietly hissed argument following Jack's statement, but in the end, Jack had very convincing, and they couldn't help but admit that she _was_ tenacious and determined, and less phased by the discover that aliens were real - and in Cardiff - than most. Armed with a pocketful of stronger Retcon than the last time – just in case she refused - Jack had ushered Gwen out of the door shortly afterwards, to talk to her and make the offer.

Ianto couldn't make his mind up which option she would take. From what little he knew of her, she seemed almost equal parts intrigued and terrified by what she'd discovered when she'd stumbled into the world of Torchwood. Aliens were real, a lot of them lived in Cardiff – oh, and there was a man wandering around who had more than a slight problem with mortality.

He wondered how much of the tale Jack would give Gwen about the reasons for it – if he would even explain it at all, or just bluster across it like he had seen him do so many times, to so many people.

Though Gwen didn't strike him as the sort to be easily put off like that – she had broken through Retcon to find them again, after all; he doubted she let go of anything without a struggle.

***

After Jack and Gwen's departure, he, Owen and Tosh hovered for a long moment, still in Jack's office, unsure as to whether they should wait for Jack to return or just go home.

After fifteen minutes, Owen declared that he'd had enough, slinging his jacket back across his shoulders and stalking out. Quarter of an hour later, Tosh followed him, although in a much quieter and less stroppy fashion.

Within the hour, after sorting the items still left on Jack's desk into safer and more suitable places, Ianto finally looked properly at his watch and realised how late it actually was. He started to collect up his belongings to leave, knowing that – whatever Gwen ultimately decided – they all had a lot of work ahead of them tomorrow.

He almost crashed right into Jack on his way out, taking a step out of the cog door just as Jack careened out of the lift, frowning slightly and not really watching the world ahead of him.

Jack blinked at him when Ianto put a hand on his arm in order to step safely around him. "You're off, then?" Ianto nodded, puzzling slightly at what sounded like a touch of disappointment in Jack's tone.

"Yes. Tosh and Owen left a while ago, and I've tidied the things away from your desk." Ianto stepped sideways around Jack, not turning away. "It's sure to be another long day tomorrow, dealing with all this, and I'd rather avoid all of you nagging at me again for not going home and sleeping."

He'd had quite enough of that in the last few weeks, and had – for the most part – been making a concerted effort to leave the Hub at more reasonable hours, sometimes even before darkness had truly set in. Sleep still didn't always come easily, but once he had found a new flat - and he _was_ looking - he hoped that would improve.

Jack smiled just a little, and twisted so Ianto could pass him easily. "I'll see you in the morning."

Ianto paused and turned back just before he stepped into the lift. His curiosity demanded that he satisfy it, that the internal debate that had been running through his head for the last hour be silenced. "Jack?"

Jack was barely through the cog door and spun around to face him again. "Yes?"

"What did she say?"

Jack made a face that seemed halfway between a smile and a grimace. "She said yes, she wants to join up. Although now that I have her decision in my hands, I'm almost wishing you three had managed to talk me out of ever offering."

Ianto frowned and made an interrogative noise in his throat. Jack had seemed so certain earlier; what could have happened in that conversation to make him change his mind?

Jack shook his head. "I didn't think it through from all angles," he said. "She could be very good for us – no, she _will_ be good for us - but I don't think we're going to be any good for her."


	27. Chapter 27 of 64

Just as Ianto had predicted, their Friday was busy that week - and long. Now and then, all of them wished that they could have the sort of Fridays a vast number in the workforce got – the kind where you finished an hour early and made a start on the weekend.

They also missed the sort of weekends that didn't mean coming into work just like any other day.

Or they _would_ miss them, if they could remember what they were like.

Owen spent half of the morning grumbling his way through the paperwork required to formalise Suzie's death. Losing a team-mate – even one you hadn't really been all that close to for months, and Owen did wonder just how long they'd been ignoring Suzie for – was tough enough, without having to document it for the authorities. One form for Torchwood records, another that the 'outside world' would see; Owen thought it was all a bit much considering no one but them would ever see the body.

Her body had already been taken down to the Torchwood morgue – Jack had taken it down before any of them had even arrived that morning. As he had pointed out, it wasn't like they needed an autopsy to figure out how she had died.

The only thing Owen thought might have been interesting, and possibly useful, was to scan her brain for any evidence of changes made by the glove's influence. But, given her chosen method of suicide, that had been made rather impossible.

He couldn't help but wonder if that had been deliberate on Suzie's part.

***

Tosh and Ianto were working together on Gwen's move from the Cardiff constabulary to Torchwood. Although it often worked in their favour for the local police force (and the hospitals and most other authorities) to recognise their name, they didn't want to make their dealings too obvious. Little nudges had to be made to records here and there to make everything seem above board and transparent.

For some reason that Ianto couldn't comprehend, Jack had assigned liaising for the day with Gwen to him – letting her know what she should say to colleagues and superiors to explain why she wouldn't be returning the following week. Why he had delegated this particular task to him was a mystery; it wasn't like he'd spent _that_ much time with her the night before, was it?

***

None of them were entirely sure what Jack did for most of the morning. He disappeared almost as soon as he'd split up assignments and didn't reappear until past lunchtime.

"All done?" he said; the lightness in his voice would have been obviously fake even to people who didn't know him as well as Tosh, Owen and Ianto did.

"Paperwork is all filed in the appropriate places, with some help from Ianto," Owen said, putting his nearly empty coffee mug down on his desk.

"And Gwen's story is as sorted out as it is possible to be," Tosh added. "She'll be all set to start on Monday."

Ianto managed a wry smile as he passed Jack, carrying the remains of the takeaway they had eaten for lunch. "If she hasn't run screaming for the hills by then, of course."

Jack shifted his shoulders, and Ianto knew there was part of him that was rather hoping she would.

"There's chow mein in the fridge for you, by the way, if you haven't eaten," he added as an afterthought as he tipped the empty containers into a bin bag.

"I'll have it later," Jack said, shaking his head. "Right now, I have a task to carry out. It's not going to be much fun and I'm going to need help from all of you."

Owen spun in his chair to face away form the desk. "What is it?"

Jack sighed. "We need to pack up Suzie's flat."


	28. Chapter 28 of 64

As Jack had suspected, clearing out Suzie's belongings wasn't much fun. As per Torchwood protocol, nothing - with the obvious exception of perishables - could be discarded. Even with four of them working practically non-stop, taking barely four hours to sleep over Friday night, it was very late on Saturday afternoon before everything had been boxed up ready for transport to the storage lockers.

They hadn't taken any particular care in the packing, other than to protect fragile items. Items were crammed into boxes any which way, based on their proximity before packing and space efficiency more than any sense of sensible organisation (as much as it pained Ianto's sense of order). Papers were piled on top of crockery; books and electrical equipment shared space with cosmetics and cleaning supplies.

Nothing was examined too closely. A few small items that were obviously alien tech and belonged back in the Hub were packed separately to be returned and archived once they were done. None of them wanted to look too carefully into the details of Suzie's life.

Things they did stumble upon only outlined clearly just how little they had known Suzie, despite, in some of their cases, years of working with her. They hadn't been friends, didn't _really_ know anything about her life, outside her work at Torchwood. It stunned them just how much they had managed to miss.

It was no wonder they hadn't seen this coming.

Another hour and everything was stacked – ostensibly neatly - in a soulless storage locker, alongside those containing the lives of numerous past employees. They couldn't bring themselves to feel any satisfaction at the completion of the job; it felt far too morbid.

They all leant against the wall wearily as Jack drew the door of the unit closed and secured it. Tosh sagged against Owen's side, struggling to keep her eyes open.

Jack looked over at them as the final security code locked down. "Go home, all of you," he said firmly. "Get some sleep. And if I see any of you in the Hub before noon tomorrow without an emergency, I'll be sending you straight back home. Take the whole day, if you want to. I need all of you firing on all cylinders for our new recruit's first day on Monday."

He watched as they all slowly pushed off the wall, nodding absently. Toshiko and Owen shuffled off towards their respective vehicles, wavering ever so slightly, and horrible images of crumpled and twisted metal suddenly filled Jack's head. "Drive carefully!" he yelled after them, trying to purge the thoughts from his imagination.

He looked to his left and found Ianto waiting there patiently, blinking back at him when Jack narrowed his eyes. "That includes you, Ianto," he said a few moments later when it became apparent that Ianto wasn't going anywhere.

Ianto nodded. "I know."

Jack shook his head. "So…?"

"I came over with you in the SUV," Ianto pointed out tiredly. "My car's still back at the Hub."

Jack frowned; how had he forgotten that? "Right, of course," he blustered. "Come on then."

***

Ianto, even though he was hovering on the edge of exhaustion, could see plainly that something was still bothering Jack as they walked back to the SUV in silence and started back towards the Hub. They were all still reeling from the revelation of Suzie's actions and subsequent suicide, but Jack seemed to be taking it harder than any of them.

Ianto and Jack had spent time together before in companionable silence, but the quiet of the SUV as the sped through the wet streets of Cardiff was anything but.

"You know, it wasn't your fault, not really," Ianto proffered quietly when they were more than halfway back to the Hub, taking a stab in the dark at what was troubling Jack.

"Oh no?" Jack sneered, letting Ianto know that he had guessed correctly. "I was her boss; I brought her _in_ to Torchwood. I was supposed to be supervising her. I didn't do that properly, and now several people are dead who didn't need to be."

"None of us saw it, Jack, and we all worked with her every day. If it's anyone's fault, it's mine." He could see Jack's mouth opening and rushed on before he could interrupt. "If we hadn't been looking for something to help Lisa, Suzie would never have even been looking at the glove, and none of this would have happened."

Jack turned to stare at him as he pulled the SUV to a stop in the Torchwood garage. "Please don't tell me you actually believe that. You can't blame yourself for something you could never have seen coming."

Ianto stared right back at him, waiting for the implications of what Jack had just said to hit the Captain.

A very long moment later, something cleared in Jack's eyes, and he sighed and sat back.

Ianto nodded. "Exactly."


	29. Chapter 29 of 64

Even with permission given from Jack for them to take the day off, by 2pm on Sunday the whole team had drifted into the Hub. There wasn't really a lot of hard work being done, but when you rarely got a day off, it seemed that it was hard to know what to do with yourself when you were actually handed one.

Owen had just – loudly – suggested that since there was nothing really happening, and it was past dinnertime already, perhaps they should all head down the pub for food and a few drinks when there was a high-pitched, repetitious bleep from one of the monitors.

"You jinxed us, Owen," Tosh complained mildly as she slid over and brought up the relevant window. "Everything would have been fine if you hadn't said that nothing was happening."

"You're not telling me you believe all that superstitious bollocks," Owen said as he and the rest of the team gathered around the workstation to check out what was causing the alarm.

"What is it then?" Jack asked, leaning over Tosh's shoulder.

"Couple of the satellites have picked up something that could possibly be heading towards Earth," Tosh said, flicking through a few feeds. "Something significantly bigger than the tiny meteorites that usually hit."

"How far out?"

"It's still quite a long way out, according to satellite triangulation," Tosh said, half to herself. "It's moving quickly, though. If it continues on its current trajectory, it will collide with Earth within the next few hours."

Owen sighed and flopped back into his chair. "So that's a 'no' on the pub, then."

***

An hour and a half later, it was looking more and more likely that the speeding object would collide with the Earth. It wasn't big enough to cause widespread damage, so there were very few reports of it on any publicly accessible news sources. Even NASA and other assorted military and space agency feeds were fairly quiet on the subject.

Another half hour and any possibility that it _wouldn't_ hit the Earth was wiped out - at least in Tosh's mind. Furthermore, she was more than half-convinced it was going to come down in the vicinity of the British Isles.

"It's not moving in a way I would expect any normal meteorite to move," Tosh said, a little worried. "If this does come down somewhere in Britain, especially if it's in Wales, I think it's on us to check it out. I'll know more about the possibilities in half an hour, but…"

Ianto dropped the papers he was sorting out back into their box. "I'll get the SUV packed, just in case."

***

True to her word, half an hour later Tosh was able to tell them that she was now 80% sure it was going to come down somewhere in South Wales – just their luck – and probably within twenty minutes.

Jack turned around to Ianto, who had returned five minutes before and taken the box of papers up again while they waited. "Is the SUV ready?"

"Everything you might possibly need for examining a crashed meteorite or small craft, yes," Ianto nodded. "And while you're gone, I'll look into clearing a space back here, in case you need to bring it back."

"Right." Jack looked around at the team. "As soon as we have half an idea where this thing has landed, we need to get out there, so be ready. Hopefully it really is just a lump of rock and this will be a simple job."

***

"It's come down about five miles north of Cardiff, although I don't have an exact location yet," Tosh said, pushing back her chair. "And the flight down there caused a huge bright path across the sky, so we're not going to be able to keep this one on the quiet."

Tosh and Owen were quickly gathering the last of their things together when they noticed Jack tapping away at his phone, Ianto standing patiently beside him with Jack's greatcoat over his arm.

"What are you doing?"

"Calling Gwen in," Jack answered, slipping the phone back into his pocket and allowing Ianto to help him on with the coat. "If this isn't as simple as we hoped, it could run into tomorrow." He plastered his most charming grin across his face. "And she's gotta start somewhere."


	30. Chapter 30 of 64

They picked Gwen up at the side of the road just off the Plass, barely stopping long enough for her to close the car door before speeding off again.

As Gwen settled in, looking around her at the new surroundings, Tosh flipped a button on the inside wall of the SUV, triggering a whole host of monitoring equipment – some of it only recently installed, during the SUV's last service, mere weeks before – to appear from hidden compartments around the edges of the solid frame.

With the upgraded integration of the SUV systems and those back in the Hub, more scans could be run on the go, reducing the necessity of the Hub-bound agent to be in constant contact on a mission like this.

More detailed and complex scans would still need to be done from the Hub - and probably always would be - but every little move they could make to freeing themselves from their complete reliance on their base was progress.

"Any word from any other local agencies yet, Tosh?" Jack asked from the front passenger seat. "This will hopefully be a simple clean up operation, but it will be a lot easier if we get to it first, before anyone else gets their hands on it."

"It's on the Army's radar, but I don't know if they've got a team scrambled to send out there yet," Tosh said, flicking through a few screens. "Not seeing any mention of it from anyone else, so far."

Gwen's eyes boggled as data flashed across the monitor in front of her. "You got enough kit?"

Tosh shrugged, looking at Gwen just briefly before turning her attention back to the monitor. "Just some basic tracking and surveillance equipment that will help us locate the crash site. Satellite data, news reports, CCTV cameras, a few essential databases…"

"Hang on," Gwen interrupted as one window in particular caught her eye. "Is this CrimInt? This is the police computer system. You shouldn't have this."

Jack twisted around to look at her through the gap between the front seats. "There's a whole lot we _shouldn't_ have access to, but we couldn't operate properly without all of it. And you might want to stop saying 'you' and start saying 'we'. Welcome on board, Gwen Cooper."

"You got an exact location for me now, Tosh?" Owen asked, not taking his eyes off the road.

"Nearly. You'll need to take a left just up here, and then a right immediately after," Tosh replied.

***

As they neared the crash site, it began to become apparent that things weren't going to be quite as simple as Jack had hoped. Floodlights lit up the area, and army vans parked all around were disgorging dozens of khaki clad soldiers.

Owen sighed as they opened the SUV doors and started to clamber out. "Shit." He shook his head. "Looks like the amateurs beat us here after all."

Jack stood on the side of the SUV, holding onto his open door as he took a better look at the goings on.

Police officers in bright yellow high-visibility jackets milled around a fluttering tape barrier. Soldiers were everywhere, setting up more floodlights and securing the guy ropes on large tents.

"Right," Jack said authoritatively, jumping down, swinging his door shut and looking determinedly towards the tape. "Let's see what's going on here, then." He started to stride off, leaving the rest of the team to scramble for the equipment cases as they secured the SUV and scurried after him. "Usual formation!" he called back, not turning around.

Tosh and Owen fell into place behind him as they climbed up the slope towards the crash site. Gwen looked around for a few moments and then hurried after them, looking slightly confused.

"What's the 'usual formation'?" she asked Owen quietly as she caught up with him.

Owen just shrugged. "It varies."

Disbelief halted Gwen on the spot for a second and she stared at their retreating backs. "How can a usual formation _vary_?"


	31. Chapter 31 of 64

They blustered right through into the tented army headquarters, ignoring the immediate complaints from several officers that they shouldn't _be there_ and that _this area is restricted_.

"We're Torchwood," Jack said brashly, fixing the officers with a look that dared them to keep complaining. "And I think you'll find that this will all run much more smoothly if you back off and let us through to do the real work." Whether it was Jack's demeanour or the word 'Torchwood', the officers seemed cowed and stood back to let them through onto the crash site.

When they exited the tent, they found themselves standing at the top of a steep slope. As they surveyed the site, two uniformed men scrambled up the hill, holding onto a makeshift rope banister that had been strung up along one side of the path. One was muttering quietly into a handheld radio, so they could only assume the message had been passed on and the army were, in fact, going to get out of there.

"Must've called back into their C.O.," Jack said with a smirk. "He knows not to cross me when it comes to things like this."

As the sounds of a field unit slowly beginning to pack up started to come from behind them, Jack gestured in front of him for them to make their way down. "Let's go see what brought us out here."

Owen and Tosh made their way cautiously down first, Gwen bringing up the rear. The ground beneath them was unstable and littered with twigs and rocks from the woods around them, so they took their time descending to the bottom of the almost crater-like hole.

As they reached the bottom, Tosh and Owen dropped their cases, flipping the tops open with practised ease and pulling out a variety of hand-held instruments.

"It just looks like a rock," Gwen said uncertainly, letting Jack offer her a hand to jump down the last few steps.

"That might be all it is," Jack agreed, tilting his head at the inauspicious rock in front of them. "But we won't know until we've checked it out. Owen?"

Owen looked up from where he was examining the surface through a magnifying class. "Best as I can tell, bog standard space debris." He shot a look at Gwen, who was still watching them with a little wonder. "And yeah, that's the technical term."

She sent a sickly smile back. "Yeah, thanks."

Jack nodded. "So let's get a set of standard readings taken and we can get out of here." He smirked, thrusting his hands into his greatcoat pockets and tilting back on his heels for a second. "This floodlighting is doing nothing for my complexion."

The remaining kits were snapped open, revealing a wide variety of equipment, some of it obvious and some of it obscure.

"Here!" Jack called, tossing a scraper and a spare stethoscope to Owen to save him clambering back around from the other side of the large rock between them. Before Jack could even bend back down to get the next instrument from the case, Owen had the ear buds in his ear and was listening intently for anything that might come from the meteorite.

Jack and Tosh nudged each other playfully as they passed each other, each circling the rock in opposite directions with a different handheld scanner.

Gwen looked on quietly, not sure if she should speak up and volunteer to do something, just join in, or remain where she was and observe.

"Hey, new girl!" Owen called over as he attempted to chisel into an edge of the rock, smiling just slightly to deflect any ill spiritedness the nickname might have implied. "Couldn't do me a favour and hand me the bigger chisel from the tool box you've got over there, could you?"

Gwen nodded. "Sure." Twisting around, she crouched down and rummaged for a second through the kit, eventually finding a large chisel at the bottom. "Here," she called back, tossing it to him just as she'd watched Jack do earlier.

Time slowed almost to a standstill for Gwen as she watched Owen grab for the falling chisel and, finding it just out of his reach, miss. Slipping past his outstretched fingers, the chisel lodged itself into a cranny in the rock, making a worrying clanking sound as it lodged itself in further.

A second later, a plume of white smoke started to seep from the newly opened gaps around the chisel.

Gwen just stared at it in dismay, not reacting until Jack physically slapped a gas mask over her face.

They all took a step back as the white smoke was followed by a much more worrying bright purple plume.

It was all Gwen could do not to crumple to the floor as the other three stared at her. This clearly wasn't her night.


	32. Chapter 32 of 64

Ianto tapped off his earpiece and, abandoning the area he had been methodically clearing out on the off chance they would have some large object to bring back with them, hurried up to the computers.

The rest of the team were finally on their way back, after what Jack had diplomatically described as an 'unfortunate incident' involving a chisel and the crashed meteorite that was clearly more than just a meteorite.

He wasn't even sure what he should be looking for. 'A purple gas escaped and headed in the direction of the City' didn't exactly give him a lot to go on. Some of the activity searches he could do could technically be done from the SUV, but he suspected they were heading back as quickly as possible, now they were finally through with the last of the sample collecting, and didn't want to distract themselves with searching out possibilities.

It was nearly twenty minutes before anything odd – or rather, anything odd enough that it was likely to be related to Torchwood – came up. A death in a nightclub was unusual but far from unheard of. The circumstances, however, sounded like something to take note of – even if it didn't turn out to be related to this particular case.

He was waiting on the strangely out-of-place, ancient office printer to spit out the hard copy of the pertinent details when the siren above the cog door went off, indicating the return of the rest of the team.

"I really, really, really am so sorry," he heard Gwen saying as they walked through. "I honestly didn't…"

"You've said," Jack replied, taking the stairs in two steps.

"But I…"

"Look," Owen said frankly, but not unkindly, "next time just work on your aim a bit before tossing stuff around, okay?"

Gwen nodded. "It was just some purple gas, though, right? I mean, it can't be _too_ bad."

Jack turned around, walking backwards to face them as he made for his office. "If only."

"Great," Ianto could only just hear Gwen muttering. "Best first day ever." He watched the printer cradle swing back and forth across the paper, casting his mind back over the years and coming to the conclusion that good first days at jobs just didn't seem to exist. Although he had to admit that in that regard, Gwen probably had him beat.

The printer finally finished printing out the page and Ianto, pinning it to a clipboard, started climbing the steps to join the others.

"Right, so we… deal with it, then, yes?" Gwen was asking as Ianto rounded the corner of Owen's desk.

Jack nodded. "Yes. Hey, everyone makes mistakes, and we still managed to collect some good samples." He waved an arm towards the case Toshiko was just setting down next to her desk. "We can have a look, see what we might be dealing with, and…"

Ianto cleared his throat to get their attention. "Actually," he interrupted, "I might have something. Nightclub owner called 999 to report a death; circumstances sound… a little unusual. Might be related."

He handed Jack the clipboard. Jack skimmed over it and handed it back. "You're right, it might be. And even if it isn't, it definitely warrants looking into."

Jack resettled his coat on his shoulders and plucked the SUV keys back out of his pocket. "Right, we need to get to that nightclub."

Ianto took a step back and started to turn around. "I'll just…"

Jack grasped his shoulder gently and turned him back around. Ianto frowned at him, confused. "What?"

"You're spending too much time down here again; you're coming with us." Releasing Ianto's shoulder, Jack gestured towards the samples box again. "Tosh, would you mind staying behind and making a start on analysing some of the samples? Might turn out to be useful."

Tosh nodded, already opening the case to start carefully unpacking samples.

***

The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon as they drew up outside the nightclub, snappily named 'Night Spot'.

A couple of cold and tired looking policemen stood in their bright yellow jackets near the entrance. "Torchwood," Jack barked at them as he barged straight past. As they seemed more resigned than surprised at this treatment, Ianto could only suppose that Torchwood had had some form of contact with these particular officers before.

The nightclub owner looked like almost every nightclub owner Ianto had ever met – a little bit sleazy and stuck in the 90's.

"Right through here." He waved them on behind him.

Despite what had been said in the 999 call, the sight that greeted them when they reached the ladies' bathroom – and it was such a long time since he'd been in one of _those_ – was rather a surprise. There was a neat pile of dust on the floor next to the sinks.

"That's… all that's left?" Gwen asked, her voice clearly conveying her doubt.

The owner nodded. "Yep"

Jack shook his head. "But this just looks like a pile of dust. How do you know this used to be a man?"

"I was… checking through the CCTV feeds for anything suspicious, and spotted him," the owner said. Even though Ianto couldn't see his face from where he was standing, he could tell he wasn't telling them the whole truth. "Bit of a shock, I'll tell you that."

Jack nodded. "I'll bet. We're going to need to see that CCTV."


	33. Chapter 33 of 64

Tosh looked up from her desk as the others returned, Ianto carrying a couple of clear plastic video boxes. "Anything?"

Jack nodded, taking the video boxes from Ianto as the younger man helped him out of his greatcoat. "This is definitely our alien."

Owen paused on his way down to the cryogenic vaults. "And it definitely killed our night club victim. Oh, but what a way to go."

He disappeared, and Tosh looked at Jack, Gwen and Ianto for clarification. "How did he die, then?"

Jack semi-shrugged. "You could say he… came and went."

Tosh frowned. "Went as in…?"

"Nothing left but a pile of dust," Ianto replied.

Tosh shuddered. Owen might like the sound of it, but that definitely wasn't how she wanted to go out.

"We've got footage of the host body the alien gas has possessed, though," Jack said. "So that's a start. We still need to figure out what sort of creature we're dealing with, though. How's the analysis coming on?"

"It's getting there," Tosh told him. She'd prepared the samples and set them through a series of tests, but was still waiting on the results to come through. "I should have some answers for you soon."

"Great," Jack said, handing the video cases back to Ianto as he returned from hanging up Jack's coat. "If you have time while you're waiting, could you give Ianto a hand getting the data loaded from those security tapes into the system?"

"No problem," Tosh smiled as Jack disappeared into his office, swinging his chair around so he could do something at his computer terminal. Gwen followed him, looking a little bit lost.

"Right," Ianto said, "I'll go dig out the old VCR then, shall I?"

"Actually," Tosh corrected gently, "there's a bit of alien tech we use that's better. It's…"

"… on the top shelf of the storage cupboard next to the armoury," Ianto finished for her. "I know. Tidying that place up was one of the first things I did after I joined."

Tosh shook her head at herself. _Of course_. She had a feeling that, despite the fact he had only been working in the Hub for six months, he probably knew it far better than she did after four years. "Okay then. You go get the VCR-that's-not-really-a-VCR, I'll get the interface set up here for you."

As Ianto, leaving the tapes on her desk, went off to collect the item in question, Tosh noticed that Jack had abandoned the computer terminal and was drawing trajectories onto the transparent galactic map with a light pen.

She could have smacked her own forehead in frustration as she rummaged under her desk for the connector she and Ianto would need. Why hadn't she thought of tracing the meteorite back through space to find out where it might have come from?

"So, what's that doing, then?" she heard Gwen ask as she sat back up again, the correct adaptor cable in hand.

"I'm using satellite-tracking data to determine the inward trajectory of the  
meteorite," Jack said, not looking away from the panel.

Tosh sighed. She could almost hear Gwen's bafflement from here. She leant back in her chair so she could see around Owen's desk to the edge of the office where Gwen was standing, watching. "He just means he's trying to find out where the meteorite came from."

Jack twisted to flash her a glare. "Oi! You know as well as I do that sometimes a little bit of techno-babble is good for the soul."

"While that may be true," Tosh grinned, "there's no point in completely confusing Gwen on her first day."

"So it's just like tracking a route on a map, then?" Gwen asked, looking back at the transparent panel.

"Pretty much," Tosh said as Owen reappeared. "Just with more space."

"My boyfriend, Rhys, does this sort of stuff. Well, on a much smaller scale, anyway," Gwen said, tilting her head to track the light across the panel.

Tosh started to nod – they, of course, knew all about Rhys, and were keeping track of him – before remembering that it probably wasn't a good idea to let _Gwen_ know that they already knew plenty about her boyfriend. "You have a boyfriend?" she asked, hoping her innocent surprised look was convincing.

Gwen nodded. "Yeah. Don't you?"

Tosh scoffed. She had a feeling Gwen could be in for a horrible wake-up call in the next few weeks. "Don't have the time with this job."

Gwen's eyebrows raised and she turned to Owen. "Owen?"

Owen laughed mirthlessly. "Tosh's right. Don't have the time for any of that crap."

Tosh could see that Gwen was beginning to look worried. "None of you have partners?"

Owen shook his head. "Just you."

Tosh glanced over in the direction of the armoury, glad that Ianto hadn't returned yet. He was doing so much better lately, but she wasn't entirely sure this line of conversation wouldn't still upset him.

She looked back at Gwen, pushing a smile to her face. "Don't worry, though. I'm sure you and Rhys will be just fine."


	34. Chapter 34 of 64

Ianto hadn't long finished getting all of the relevant CCTV loaded into the system and was brewing the second round of coffees for the day when there was a slightly muffled beep from the office area, followed by the sounds of Tosh scuttling across to the machine attached to their analysis equipment.

"Finally got the results on the gas analysis!" she called up to Jack.

"And?" He could see Jack at his desk if he cricked his neck a little; the Captain had temporarily given up on the reverse route tracking of the meteorite after finding that they didn't have enough data beyond a certain distance from the Earth. The remaining possibilities were apparently almost endless.

"Vorax and Suranium."

Ianto frowned as he put the mugs for everyone onto a tray, trying to remember if he'd seen either of those names come up in the sections of the archived files he'd been sorting.

"Oh, two of my favourites," Jack said, a wry grin on his face. "Do we know anything about them at all?"

Ianto handed Owen his coffee mug on his way down to the medical bay, where Owen kept all his own records of alien substances that might have any medical effect.

"I'm on it!" Owen called back.

"Any luck with the CCTV?" Jack asked as Ianto handed the rest of the coffees around.

"Program should nearly be done, now," Tosh replied.

Gwen came to stand just behind Ianto near Tosh's desk. "Program for what?"

"I've taken an image of the girl from the club CCTV," Tosh explained. "And the program cross-checks her face with the UK population."

Gwen shook her head. "You surely can't have the face of every single person in the UK on there. That goes again civil liberties, data protection, all that stuff – you can't do that."

Jack leant between Gwen and Ianto. "I think you'll find that _we_ can and do, when necessary."

"But…"

Gwen was silenced as the program finished running, flashing a results screen on the monitor.

"One hundred and nineteen possible matches," Jack read from the window. "Not quite the single answer we were hoping for."

Tosh sighed. "The CCTV was just too low res. I magnified it and enhanced it and cleaned it up as much as I could, but there just wasn't enough detail for the program to function properly."

Ianto looked around at them, slightly surprised at the pessimism being displayed about the results. "Well, it's narrowed it down at least; a hundred and nineteen, from millions. I could look through the rest the old fashioned way."

Jack, Gwen and Tosh all shot him confused looks. "You know," he said dryly, "with my eyes?" He waved a hand at said features for emphasis.

Jack patted his shoulder. "Good thinking." Tosh was still typing the commands to send the group of pictures and details to Ianto's own tiny workstation near the kitchen area when Jack started talking again, throwing out ideas in a way that Ianto knew bore results surprisingly often.

"Tosh, is there any way we can trace her movements backwards, to before she got herself possessed? The CCTV cameras must have picked up when she arrived at the club, we could follow her back through the street network, see where she started."

Tosh looked sceptical. "Every turning on every street corner, that's thousands of possibilities. Could take a while, and we might not even follow her home."

Jack nodded. "I know. Give it a shot anyway. At least it will tell us _something_."

There was a thoughtful look on Gwen's face. "We could cross-reference the last point we _do_ see her with the addresses for the faces, once Ianto has narrowed them down even further."

A wide grin spread across Jack's face. "_Now_ we're getting somewhere!"

***

It was nearly an hour – and yet another hastily brewed round of coffee – before Ianto was finished checking through all the possible matching faces, and just a little longer before the CCTV tracking system spit anything out, but within minutes of _that_, they had a breakthrough.

"Jack!" Tosh called. "I think we've got her address!"


	35. Chapter 35 of 64

According to Jack, they'd made it to the girl's – Carys's - house in the nick of time. Ten minutes later and a delivery driver with unfortunate timing and luck could have been a pile of dust just like the nightclub goer the night before.

"Poor guy was mortified when we all barged in there," Jack reported to Ianto as Gwen escorted Carys away and the others returned to work they'd abandoned earlier. "Had to actually prompt him to pull his trousers up and get out of there."

He smirked exaggeratedly. "Although you know me. Broke my heart to say those words. Always does."

Ianto smiled slightly, wondering idly just how many times Jack _had_ said that in the last 150 years or so – especially through all the years where he could have gotten himself, and whoever he was with, in serious trouble if they had been caught.

"So, is she in the cells now, then?" he asked.

Jack nodded. "Gwen's taken her down and is going to try to talk to her, see what she can find out."

Ianto raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

Jack waved off his concern. "She'll be fine. However accidental it was, she did cause this mess. Seems only fair to give her a chance to fix it."

Ianto wasn't quite convinced, but nodded anyway. "You're the boss. Is there anything you need from me or…?"

"Actually," Jack interrupted. "I feel like I haven't eaten in days. Could you rustle us up some lunch?"

Ianto nodded and started mentally flipping through the extensive collection of takeaway menus he had in a drawer at his workstation. "Any preferences?"

Jack shrugged. "Surprise us."

***

Ianto had just hung up the phone after placing their order when a cry from Owen had them all gathering around his desk. "Oi, guys! We've got a treat!"

Ianto stood behind Jack as all four of them watched the feed from the cells, watched Gwen as she engaged in a torrid kiss with their erstwhile prisoner and alien possessee.

"Whoa!" Tosh sounded a little flustered.

"Hey, doesn't she have a boyfriend?"

A corner of Ianto's mind tried to answer Owen's question, but the rest of it was a little distracted.

"Those quaint categories again?" Jack replied, a little hazily.

Ianto almost unconsciously tilted his head as he followed the movements on the screen.

He heard Tosh as she spoke, but for some reason his body didn't jump to take any action over it. "We should really go help her, get her out of there."

It was several more seconds before Jack shifted, straightening in front of him and snapping Ianto out of his accidental haze. "Yeah," he said sharply. "Yeah, we should."

He and Tosh brushed past him as they ran down the steps and towards the entrance to the cells. Owen looked like he was about to jump up and follow them, but stopped instead to twist back and enter the key sequence to make a permanent copy of an area of the CCTV footage that wasn't normally kept past a few days.

Once Owen was gone, jogging half-heartedly after Jack and Tosh, Ianto swung into his vacated seat, hitting another sequence of commands to reverse the action.

Gwen was already going to have a hard enough time being the new girl who was only just getting her first real knowledge of aliens, she didn't really need a record of this too.

As his eyes flickered back to the screen once he'd finished typing, he noticed that Gwen and Carys had now separated, Gwen looking down dazedly at her ripped open blouse and swiftly refastening it. When she jumped and glanced down at her pocket, he could only assume that her phone had gone off – an assumption that was confirmed seconds later when she answered it.

Glancing at his watch, Ianto realised with some surprise that some fifteen minutes had passed since he called to place their takeaway order, and the delivery would probably be arriving soon.

He was right – he had barely had the tourist office 'opened' for two minutes when the door swung open and the teenaged delivery boy stepped through. "Aright there, Mr. Jones? Stocking up again, eh?"

"That's right," he smiled at the familiar face. "Put it on my account as usual, okay?"

"Righty-oh." With a nod, the boy was off, the cardboard box full of food left resting on the counter.

Ianto made his way back downstairs, carrying the box carefully.

Gwen had reappeared on the floor with them by the time he made it back through the cog door, looking rather discomfited at the attention and teasing she was receiving from the rest of the team.

"So," Ianto said brightly, pasting a grin on his face. "Who's for Chinese?"


	36. Chapter 36 of 64

Gwen's mind boggled at the tales being told around the lunch table. Even with everything she had seen in the last week, some of the stories seemed almost too crazy to be true.

Jack laughed, talking around half a mouthful of food. "And then she said if she'd known that's what he was, she'd never have married him!"

Tosh scoffed. "She knew; she had to have known."

Owen nodded, continuing Tosh's line. "She just didn't care."

"Until he started leaving black gloop everywhere," Ianto added, waving his chopstick as he waited to swallow before speaking. "Started off outside, and down by the docks, but then it's in the bathroom, and the kitchen…"

"It's always the gloop that catches them out," Jack said, still speaking with his mouth full. "Some species just never learned any household manners."

"Neither have some humans," Ianto pointed out, wiping his chin with his napkin as he looked markedly at Jack. The napkin he'd fastidiously fastened into his collar, Gwen couldn't help noticing. If anyone was going to pick on the boss's table manners, she supposed that Ianto, who had been nothing but polite and courteous to her so far, was the right choice.

Looking to Jack to see his reaction, she noticed that he made the conscious effort to actually swallow his mouthful of chow mein before protesting.

A momentary silence came over the conference room as they all shovelled food into their mouths – Gwen knew that she hadn't properly eaten anything since her dinner out with Rhys the night before, and as she hadn't seen any of the others snacking during the night or morning, she suspected they were all just as starving as she was.

And it didn't harm matters that the Chinese was delicious; she made a note to ask Ianto what takeaway they used, as it was a whole lot better than the one she and Rhys occasionally ordered from.

Through the quiet, an odd noise drifted to Gwen's ears. She listened more closely.

She put down her prawn cracker and looked around at the others. "What's that noise?"

Owen's throat moved as he swallowed hard and reached for a remote control sitting in the centre of the table. Pointing it at the large screen at the end of the room, he flicked it on.

The monitor showed the CCTV from the cell where Carys was being held, and it was clear from the sound and picture that the girl was sobbing her eyes out.

Gwen stood up, incensed, walking towards the screen. "There's a girl down there, crying her heart out and fighting for her life, and we've been sitting here eating _Chinese_! What are we doing? We should be down there helping her!"

There was a clatter as Ianto dropped his chopsticks to the table, pushing his chair back, dropping his napkin on the table and apologising before he walked quickly from the room.

"We do need to eat," Jack said, drawing Gwen's attention back to him. "And it's not like we've been doing nothing. While we've been eating, the computers have been running a full bio-scan on Carys, checking what effect the alien is having on her body. We've also been monitoring the air in the cell to see if there are any changes in her environment. Whether we waited for it to do that while eating or while staring at the monitor watching it as it worked makes little difference."

Gwen blinked at the torrent of words, reluctantly admitting to herself that he might have a point.

"Now if you don't mind, I'm going to go check on Ianto."

Without another word or a glance, he stood up and hurried off in the direction Ianto had headed.

Gwen looked between Owen and Tosh, confused. "Okay, what just happened there? What did I say?"

Owen gestured towards the chair Gwen had occupied earlier. "Why don't you have a seat and we'll tell you what we can."

Uneasy, Gwen shuffled back to her seat and sat down.

"About… exactly a month ago, actually," Tosh started hesitantly, "Ianto lost his girlfriend." She visibly swallowed. "Well, we all lost her, really."

This hadn't really helped Gwen clear up any of her confusion; if anything, she was more confused than ever. "What does this have to do with…?"

"Lisa worked at Torchwood One, with Ianto, before... before Canary Wharf." Owen broke in. "And I know that everything in the media called it a 'terrorist attack', and we encouraged that but…" He stopped to take a deep breath. "Well, it _was_ a terrorist attack, really, just not human terrorists."

Gwen reeled, a little. She'd seen reports on the Canary Wharf attacks on television, and it had been awful, but it had still seemed so far away, almost abstract, even with… she half remembered them now, the strange metal things that had marched the streets, the things she had written off as some sort of hallucination.

And now, if she was interpreting correctly, Owen and Tosh were telling her that Ianto had actually been there; and so had his girlfriend.

"It was basically a battle between the Daleks and the Cybermen," Tosh said flatly, clearly trying to take a step back from the events to be able to get through the explanation. "And you'll find out more about each of those soon enough, but the humans, especially those in Torchwood Tower, were caught up in the crossfire. Lisa, Ianto's girlfriend, was…"

Tosh broke off, breathing hard and shaking her head.

"She was in a bad way," Owen summarised. "Ianto brought her here, for help, and we tried. She was on a life support system, living in a room just down there on the way to the archives, and fought to survive every day for five months while we looked for a way to cure her."

Gwen's heart jumped into her throat as she realised the parallels Ianto must have drawn from her words about Carys. A young woman. Fighting for her life. Fighting to survive in the Hub, while life must have gone on around her, even through their search for help. She covered her mouth with her fingers. "Oh no. And then I… he must be…"

She took a breath. "And it's only been a month? I can't even imagine what he's going through." She doubted she'd be carrying on so stoically, coping so strongly, a month on, if she'd lost Rhys. "I would never have even suspected."

"We do what we can for him," Tosh said softly. "But Jack's the only one who really seems to be able to help. He and Lisa became good friends in the months she was here, closer than either of us did." She waved between herself and Owen. "I think it helps."

Gwen bit her lip, thinking back over the contact she'd had with the young Welshman over the last week and starting to see the signs she'd missed. They were small, but there.

"Jack will get him through this," Owen said with surety, a level of confidence in his voice that set Gwen to wondering what demons _he_ had faced in the past; what horrors had Jack pulled him through, pulled them all through?

Tosh nodded. "He will. Jack's pretty determined." She leant over the table conspiratorially. "Between you and me, I think Jack cares a lot more for Ianto than he lets on."

Gwen shook her head a little, trying to clear her thoughts. "You mean they're…?" She trailed off, not actually quite sure what she was trying to say.

"Oh no," Tosh answered quickly. "No. But if the circumstances were different and Ianto… you know. I think that Jack would have liked them to be."

Gwen blew out a breath. The influx of information was overwhelming, and it was clear neither Jack nor Ianto was _quite_ who she had imagined them to be.

She didn't have a chance to say anything further on the matter, as the two men in question reappeared at just that moment. Ianto definitely, when she looked hard, seemed a little shaken, but whatever Jack had said or done when he had found him had clearly helped.

"Right," Jack said, taking charge again. "If we're all done eating, why don't we see what PC Cooper here has to teach us about dealing with alien possession?"


	37. Chapter 37 of 64

Ianto had drifted back upstairs to the Tourist Office shortly after Gwen had commandeered a large pinboard downstairs and begun pinning random snippets of Carys's life to it.

He just needed a little space.

Jack had been brilliant earlier, had been a shoulder to cling to while he had pushed back the tears and the memories Gwen's unknowing words had brought up. Ianto really didn't want to get dependent on Jack's presence, though.

And it wasn't like the Tourist Office didn't need a little attention. He'd been interrupted almost every time he'd been up there to sort things out in the last couple of weeks, and a job half done often left more disorganisation than a job never begun.

Double-checking that his comms. were on, just in case of an emergency back down in the Hub, he got to work.

He had made good progress, and was almost at a point where he could consider himself organised in the office for the next several weeks at least, when there was the sound of a kerfuffle behind him.

Spinning around, he was more than a little surprised to find Carys standing there, holding a large jar in her arms. After a second he recognised it as an oddity that had graced a corner of the Hub near the entrance since he had arrived. Only Jack seemed to know anything about it, and Ianto hadn't quite built up the nerve to ask him why he was keeping what appeared to be a severed human hand in a jar.

Seconds later, Jack appeared behind her, his gun in hand.

Ianto took a step sideways, blocking the path to the front door. "Need me to do anything, sir?" He wasn't entirely sure what he _could_ do, but he'd give anything a shot if it would help.

He could see Jack's eyes flickering between the door and the hand in the jar, the gun in his wand wavering slightly. "Just… open the door."

Not taking his eyes from Carys, Ianto reached down to his side and hit the button that would unlock the front door. The hand in the jar, whatever the reason for it, was clearly more important to Jack than Ianto had realised, if using it as a bargaining chip meant he would allow Carys to escape.

With a quiet buzz, the door opened.

"Alright, then," Jack said quietly, holding his arms out in a calming motion. "Now just… give me the jar."

Almost before Ianto could blink, Carys had skirted around him and the jar was on the floor at the other side of the tourist office, the top thrown from the rest of the jar, the formerly bubbling gloopy liquid oozing across the floor.

And he'd only cleaned that floor an hour ago.

Jack crumpled to the floor beside it, not seeming to care when the liquid seeped into the material of his trousers at the knees, looking vaguely distraught.

Luckily for Ianto, Gwen and Tosh appeared at the door down to the Hub barely another second later, freeing him from the decision of whether he should go after Carys, or go to Jack.

All it took was a look to convey to Tosh that Carys had gone out of the open door, and she and Gwen dashed out after her. Ianto wasn't at all sure that they'd find her – it was late afternoon in central Cardiff, plenty people for her to hide among if she wanted.

Skirting around the counter, he crouched down carefully next to Jack, trying his best not to get any of the spillage over his own suit trousers.

"Jack," he said softly. There was no response. "Jack," he tried again a little louder, gingerly resting a hand on Jack's shoulder.

Jack looked round, almost seeming surprised to see Ianto down on the floor next to him. He had the severed hand cradled between his own hands, and Ianto shuddered slightly as the fingers seemed to _move_.

Looking away - looking at anything but the unnatural movement of the hand - Ianto realised that the jar it lived in was, although burst open, intact. All that would be needed was to refill it with… whatever it was that it had been filled with before – he wasn't sure he actually wanted to know – and put the lid back on.

He was about to tell Jack that, in the hopes that it would alleviate the mild panic brewing behind Jack's eyes, when the front door to the office burst open again.

Gwen and Tosh stumbled in, both a little breathless.

"It's no use," Tosh panted. "She's gone."


	38. Chapter 38 of 64

"Pheromones," muttered Ianto to himself for not the first time as he mopped up behind the Tourist Office counter. "How did none of us think of that?" Gwen and Tosh's reappearance had snapped Jack from his daze enough to answer a couple of questions as Ianto helped him gather up the jar to take the hand back downstairs.

Given what had happened when Gwen had gone down to the cells on her own, they really should have suspected something. He shook his head, wondering at their apparent attack of collective dimness.

Storing the mop back in the cupboard and flipping the sign on the front door to 'Closed', he made his way back down to the main Hub, intent on offering his assistance to whatever research was sure to be going on to find Carys. He was just in time to witness what he thought had originally been some sort of rodent become nothing more than a splat inside a plastic box.

His suspicions were confirmed a moment later when Owen threw his hands in the air. "Rat jam!"

Ianto stepped up closer to the other, slightly confused as to the purposes of whatever this little experiment had been.

"So, that's what will happen to Carys?" Jack asked, sounding more worried than he had since the case had begun.

Owen didn't answer, a tilt of his head more than enough confirmation for all of them.

"She said she was losing," Gwen said in a small voice. "Down in the cells, that's what she said."

"We need to find her before she loses that battle and takes a leaf from the rat's book," Jack said, shaking his head.

"But where would she go?" Owen asked, coming up from the medical bay where the box containing the former rat still sat.

"Well, the alien inside her wants sex, right?" Ianto asked, looking around the others for confirmation.

"Yeah," Jack nodded. "It feeds on the energy from the orgasm."

"So where is it going to want to go?"

Jack folded his arms and seemed thoughtful for a second. "Lap dancing clubs, brothels… anywhere where there are lots of eager and desperate men, I guess."

Tosh shook her head and sighed at them. Ianto, who thought Jack's suggestions seemed perfectly logical, looked quizzically at her.

"You're thinking like men," she said patiently. "Carys may be possessed by this… sex gas, but she's still a woman." She tilted her head at Gwen. "I don't know about you, but if I was in her situation, I think I know where I'd go."

For a brief flash, Gwen seemed as confused as Ianto felt, and then a light bulb went on behind her eyes and she nodded grimly. "The Ex."

Jack looked at Gwen. "Did you pick up any names for those in all of your profiling? I'm hoping it's a short list."

Turning swiftly, Gwen scurried off, returning less than a minute later with a piece of paper in her hand. "From what I found, there's only one really serious one. This guy." She proffered the page.

"Right," Jack said, reading the page and clapping his hands together. "Ianto, keep an ear out for any odd reports, we have somewhere to be."

Ianto nodded as the four of them ran from the Hub, barely taking a moment to grab weapons and basic toolkits from desks.

***

Struggling to keep his eyes open as he approached thirty-six hours without sleep, Ianto brewed a pot of extra strong coffee while he kept an ear out for any unusual reports coming in that would indicate that Tosh and Gwen's intuition had led them astray.

Ten minutes later, that notion was dispelled as Jack's dispirited voice came over his comms. _"Right place, just too late."_

"Nothing here, sorry," Ianto replied, quickly flicking through the monitors and feeds once more, just to be sure. "I don't have any clues to give as to where she might be."

"_That's okay, Ianto. We'll have a think about it and be back soon if we can't come up with anywhere."_

The comm. went silent again, leaving Ianto with just the sounds from the police feeds, the water tower's drips and Myfanwy snuffling in her nest somewhere far above him to keep him company.

***

He startled guiltily out of a light doze when the siren above the cog door went off some time later, the rest of the team clattering through noisily.

"Everyone go home!" Jack was calling before they were even properly into the Hub. "It's been more than a long day and, even though we saved the day this time, who knows what's around the corner!"

"It's been a very long _two_ days, Jack," Ianto said blearily as he made his way across to the others.

"Exactly," Jack said, gesturing around him for them all to hurry up and get sorted out and leave again. He caught Ianto's arm as he was about to go back to collect his jacket. "When Gwen gets in tomorrow…" he started, a cajoling note in his voice.

Ianto raised an eyebrow in question. "Yes?"

Jack tilted his head, clearly trying to appear at his most endearing. "Do Gwen's induction paperwork with her for me? Please?"

Ianto sighed, nodding as he pulled his arm free and snagged his jacket to leave. "_Only_ because you asked nicely," he murmured, realising with some dismay that he wasn't sure if that was actually quite true.


	39. Chapter 39 of 64

Seeing Ianto and Gwen raise their heads from the pile of paperwork they'd been working on for the last forty minutes – most of which was, Jack was sure, fairly pointless – Jack lowered his head and pretended that he had been working on his _own_ paperwork, and had not just been staring at them.

A shadow fell across his desk a few moments later and he looked up to smile at Ianto. "All done?"

Ianto nodded and placed the thick stack of papers neatly on the side of his desk. "They just need your signature and they can all be filed and/or sent to the relevant authorities, and Gwen will officially be a Torchwood employee. And she's got copies of all the handbooks – which, by the way, need some serious updating. They're even more out of date than the one I got in London."

"Brilliant," Jack said absently, flicking half-heartedly through the pile, noting the lines of Ianto's neat 'paperwork' handwriting interspersed at random intervals with Gwen's more loopy and flowery calligraphy.

Dropping them back to the desk, he raised his head and noted that Ianto was looking distractedly at his watch. "Somewhere you have to be?" he asked, a little teasingly.

Ianto looked straight back up to meet his gaze. "Yes, actually. There are a few flats I've seen up for rent that might suit me and, perhaps optimistically, I scheduled viewings for several of them late this afternoon, hoping that it might actually be quiet today."

Jack leant back, only then recalling a conversation he'd had with Ianto late one evening the week before. "When's the first appointment?"

Ianto glanced at his watch again. "Forty-eight minutes from now."

Jack looked down at his desk, covered in half-completed budget forms and minor incident reports, and back up at Ianto. He knew which one he would prefer to spend his evening with. "Fancy a second opinion?"

Ianto put his hands on his hips and looked pointedly at the desk between them. "You just want to get out of finishing all this paperwork this evening."

Jack shrugged. There was no point in denying the truth; that was part of it and he knew Ianto would be able to see right through the lie. "Well, yes, partly. But, I also just want to help you move." He smiled winningly. "I did promise to help if you wanted, didn't I?"

"Yes," Ianto said, nodding. "_If_ I wanted."

Jack felt his heart sink. He hadn't anticipated that Ianto might actually _not_ want his company. While he knew it was a good sign for Ianto's emotional state that he'd been doing so well lately and had seemed to be happy to go home when the others did, he found that he missed Ianto's presence in the evenings. He had reached out initially to help and support the young man when he'd been struggling, but over time he had grown to depend on the friendship just as much.

And it was getting harder and harder to suppress the fledgling feelings that had been emerging for months before Lisa's death. He knew he had to; he knew it was completely ridiculous to have any hopes that Ianto could return them, especially this soon. But he couldn't help but want to spend time with him – as a friend, if he could be nothing more.

He sighed, lowering his eyes and almost missed it when Ianto started speaking again, "Alright, how's this for a deal? You sign all of Gwen's paperwork and finish off this month's expendables budget in the next twenty minutes - before I leave - and you can come pick fault in the flats I'm looking at."

"Deal," said Jack immediately, reaching for his pen. Relieved, he looked back up at Ianto and saw a tinge of smug mischievousness in the younger man's eyes. He almost protested at the obvious ploy, now that it _was_ obvious to him, but couldn't quite bring himself to do so – not when it brought a sparkle like that to Ianto's eyes.

"I'll be back in twenty minutes," Ianto said mildly, turning to leave. "Any longer and I'll be late."

Jack clicked the top of his pen and got to work.

***

"There's barely enough room to move in this kitchen," Jack griped quietly at the fourth flat showing, nearly two hours later, accidentally elbowing Ianto in the ribs as they both tried to squeeze into the tiny room at the same time as the agent.

"There would be plenty room if it was only me," Ianto retorted from behind him, and there was what felt like a very deliberate nudge at his shoulder. "And the lounge more than makes up for a small kitchen. It's not like I'm planning on any culinary masterpieces anyway."

Jack smiled; this was a little bit more like it. Despite the fact that, compared to the dive Ianto currently called home, all of the flats they had viewed that afternoon were positively palatial, Ianto hadn't seemed at all enthused by any of them.

"What if you suddenly decide on the spur of the moment that you want to have a dinner party?"

Ianto chuckled, practically into his ear. "If I ever have the time to throw a dinner party it would be a miracle. And if I ever express the urge to spontaneously do so, you should lock me up as I will clearly be an impostor."

"So you like this one then?" Jack asked, twisting around in the small space and leaning back against the small length of countertop.

Ianto shrugged a little. "It's definitely better than the others we've seen today, at least. And, if I want to move in the near future, I do probably have to take _one_ of them."

Jack noticed the estate agent's eyes brightening at this. "So…?" he asked leadingly.

Ianto took a breath and set his shoulders, turning to look at the agent. "I'll take it."


	40. Chapter 40 of 64

"Ianto! Gwen!" Jack bellowed into the cavernous space of the Hub. "Both of you, shooting range, now!"

Without waiting to see if they were coming, he turned and headed back down the corridor that led to the stairs that would take them to the range.

It was nearly a minute before Ianto and Gwen joined him in the wide soundproofed tunnel. Both looked apprehensive and more than a little confused.

"I'm assuming there's a reason you wanted us down here," Ianto said carefully. "And I'm hoping it's not that you want us for target practice."

Jack chuckled and shook his head. "Both of you need training."

"But I don't usually…" Ianto started to protest.

Jack cut him off. "You know as well as I do that just because you usually stay in the Hub doesn't mean you're necessarily safe." The memory of crouching helplessly over Ianto's bloodied body still reared its head in his nightmares, on the occasions he allowed himself to sleep. "You need to know how to use a weapon to defend yourself, and Gwen definitely needs to know how to use one."

Ianto nodded, although it looked reluctant.

"Hopefully neither of you will be called upon to use this training 'in anger' too often," Jack said, taking a wild guess at the cause of Ianto's reluctance. "But you need to know, just in case."

"Do I really have to?" Gwen asked nervously. "I mean, I don't want to kill things. I don't even kill spiders in the bath."

Jack laughed as he felt a wave of relief pass through him. He was supremely glad that neither Gwen nor Ianto were likely to turn trigger-happy as soon as he'd taught them how to shoot. That was one of the things he'd tried hard to stamp out in his time at Torchwood, and even more so since he'd taken over Three. "Neither do I," he smiled. "Not with a gun."

"I did have a tiny bit of training when I joined London," Ianto admitted. "Not much - since I was never a field agent - but they taught me how to avoid accidentally shooting someone, at least."

Jack knew what the basic employee induction training in London had comprised of and nodded absently in agreement with Ianto's assessment. Researchers and field agents in the London office had rarely interacted directly; many of those in the minor research departments had never even encountered true alien technology first hand - let alone faced an actual alien being.

Even the minimal weapons training Ianto had been through had only been introduced because one particular overzealous, but unfortunately narrowly focussed, health and safety officer had deemed the very presence of firearms in the building dangerous without every employee receiving safety training.

He should, he reflected, have probably given Ianto weapons training months ago – within the his first few weeks after joining really, even taking into account the fact that they had been getting things ready for Lisa. Who knew what differences it could have made to all the events since if he had?

Pushing the 'what ifs' to the back of his mind - knowing they never got anyone anywhere - Jack directed his concentration back to Gwen and Ianto.

"Well, by the end of this session, hopefully both of you will know not only how _not_ to shoot someone, but also how to aim and shoot at something when necessary," he told them.

Exchanging a glance, Gwen and Ianto both nodded.

Jack looked between them. Hopefully he wouldn't need to go completely through everything twice, as long as whoever was second could pick things up from the first time through.

"Right," he said, beckoning them over to a table. "First thing you both need is protective gear. Headset and glasses." He picked up the same for himself, keeping an eye on Gwen and Ianto for when they were ready.

"All set?" he said into the microphone, pleased to see that they had both clearly heard him as they nodded - albeit hesitantly.

"Okay." Picking up the most basic of the weapons he had laid out, he carefully showed them how it was loaded and handed it to Gwen. Not having had even the minimal experience Ianto had, Jack suspected Gwen might need a little more work.

Gwen immediately confirmed his suspicions when she took the gun and accidentally waved it right into his face. He gripped her wrist, directing it more at the floor. "Safety tip number one," he said. "The only place we point the gun is at the target."

Releasing her wrist, he indicated for her to take aim at the Weevil-shaped targets further down the huge tunnel. He wondered just how many action films she'd been watching when he saw the pose she took up to aim.

Shaking his head, he stepped up close behind her and loosened her grip, easing her body around into a better stance. "Use your arm to help you aim," he said in her ear, holding her close to him to keep her body in the right position. "Look down, across your shoulder, and bring your arm up."

He felt her jerk slightly. "Slowly," he cautioned, a hand on her waist to steady her. "Nice and smooth. Get the target in sight."

Minutely, she nodded. Reaching forward, he cocked the gun, leaving one hand to steady her wrist when he noticed she was shaking slightly. "Breathe," he reminded her. "Nice slow breath in, and then as you breath out, just _gently_… squeeze the trigger."

The reverberations shuddered through both of them as the shot rang out, hitting the edge of one of the targets. He could hear Gwen's nervous laughter in the headphones.

He took a small step back, just far enough that he knew she would still be able to sense him in her personal space. Close enough to keep her a little off balance, force her to push it aside and concentrate on the shot. There would always be distractions in the real world; he didn't believe in training his staff in an environment where they were completely free to focus entirely on the shot.

"That one was a bit of a joint effort," he said, his eyes flicking sideways to notice Ianto grinning a little. "On your own this time."

He stayed close as she fired several more shots, shifting around until he was completely out of her line of sight, knowing it would rattle her. Her first solo shot missed the target by a mile, but he could see definite improvement as she started to concentrate properly. He had a suspicion that with a bit of practice, Gwen could actually be quite a crack shot.

When the ammunition ran out, he called Ianto back over to show them both how to unload the empty clip and reload the new one, then nodded Gwen to go back to where Ianto had been watching from before.

When he looked back to Ianto, he noticed that the younger man looked a little apprehensive. "Did you actually have to fire a weapon at any point in your training in London?" he asked, holding onto the gun for a moment longer.

Ianto shook his head. "It was all about making sure the safety was still on and not waving it around willy-nilly."

Jack nodded. He had thought as much.

He handed Ianto the weapon, glad to see that the combination of whatever he'd been taught two and a half years before in London and watching Gwen meant Ianto gripped it safely, with no chance of it going off in either of their faces.

While both Gwen and Ianto knew about his troubles with mortality, he would much prefer it if they could get though the session without him having to put it into practice.

"Right, go on then," he encouraged. Ianto's brow furrowed a bit as he methodically set up his stance, clearly trying to copy how he'd watched Jack move Gwen. While the stance itself was more or less correct…

"Hey," Jack said, putting his hands on Ianto's shoulders, "you need to relax a bit. If you fire a shot all tense like that, you're going to do yourself an injury. Take deep breaths and loosen your shoulders."

Ianto took an audible breath, and the muscles under Jack's hands softened. Stepping in closer, he commanded Ianto to take aim, pleased again to see that Ianto had been listening while he was instructing Gwen and was peering down his arm as he lined up the shot.

"Just squeeze gently," he prompted, not quite close enough this time to feel the slight jolt of the kickback as Ianto fired.

He didn't move as he indicated for Ianto to take another shot, knowing he was close enough that he was definitely invading the other man's space. Ianto didn't seem to be perturbed at all by his nearness, and Jack found a corner of his mind that was actually upset - despite the fact that, as far as the training was concerned, it was a very good thing.

The problem, he discovered as he shifted slightly, was that the technique that was supposed to be distracting Ianto only seemed to be distracting himself. Most of the time, despite his secret fantasies, he'd avoided getting quite this close to Ianto.

He barely noticed when Ianto stopped shooting as the ammunition had run out, and twisted around to look at him.

"Jack?"

He blinked and shook himself. "Yeah, yeah, great. You both seem to have a good handle on the basics. Now let's try something with a little bit more oomph."


	41. Chapter 41 of 64

Tosh tilted her head back and took a deep breath as she stepped though the cog door. The air in the Hub was lovely and cool.

For the past two days, the temperature had soared across Cardiff – across most of Britain, actually – and being outside for long was almost unbearable. She wasn't used to those sorts of temperatures any more. The underground location of the Hub meant that it was perennially cool and fresh – not so appealing in the winter, but a haven on the rare occasions when summer days grew hot.

Shrugging her shoulder bag off, she sat down and logged onto her workstation. Waiting for her were the usual compiled report of the night's Rift monitor readings, the results of a translation algorithm she'd left running overnight – still not right, dammit – and… an email. The email was unusual. There was very little that usually landed in her inbox that wasn't an internal message from one of the others on the team.

Curiously, she clicked to open up her inbox, pausing when she noticed the subject line and the sender's address.

20-Jul-06 10:35am n . tanizaki AT okinsawa . jp Re: Request for research assistance

Her breath caught in her throat and she pushed away from her desk.

It had been months since she and Ianto had sent that email. With everything that had happened since, she'd almost forgotten they had ever sent it at all.

She didn't know if she should open it or not. She reached out her hand towards the mouse and then withdrew it again. Part of her wanted to delete it without even reading it; delete it, forget it had ever arrived, and keep it to herself.

But she shouldn't, should she?

As she leant back, staring uncertainly at the screen, Jack walked past behind her and effectively took the decision out of her hands.

"Hey, Tosh. Is something wrong?"

Unable to bring herself to verbalise the issue, she simply pointed at the screen. Jack leant past her to read it, and she could tell the exact moment when the significance of what he was reading hit him. His whole body tensed up, his fingers tightening into fists.

"Have you read it?" he asked a long minute later, his voice tight.

Tosh shook her head. "No. I…" She took a breath. "I couldn't decide if I should - or if I wanted to. If he says…"

She couldn't go on, but she knew Jack understood what she meant. If there was a possibility that Dr Tanizaki could, and would, have helped…

There was an awkward pause.

Jack slowly stood up, breathing deeply. "Before we do anything," he started deliberately. "We… we need to tell Ianto."

***

Unable to sleep in the oppressively sticky heat of his flat, Ianto had made his way to the Hub in the very early hours of that morning. The archives were blessedly cool, and he quickly found his rhythm, sorting through a stack of jumbled papers dating from a period spanning several decades.

He startled as Jack's voice sounded behind him – close behind him. He had been so lost in the work that he hadn't even heard him approaching.

He glanced down at his watch and realised that several hours had passed since he'd arrived and that Tosh, at least, would probably have arrived.

He twisted around and looked up at Jack. "Coffee?" He couldn't think of any other reason Jack would have sought him out down here. While Jack didn't avoid the archives completely like the others did, he was a rare presence there.

Jack shook his head and held out his hand. "No. Well, it wouldn't be unwelcome, but… that's not why I'm here."

Ianto swallowed hard, the pained look in Jack's eyes worrying him. "Then what…?"

Jack shook his head and pulled him to his feet. "I'll tell you when we get back up to the Hub."

On the walk back, Ianto couldn't help but let terrible scenario after terrible scenario flood through his brain. Was Tosh gravely injured? Or Owen? Or Gwen? Had there been some surprise attack and he'd somehow missed it? Was the whole Earth in danger?

He was relieved – but confused – when they reached the Hub and there didn't seem to be any sort of panic – and Tosh was sitting, looking as fine as usual, at her workstation.

Although, as he looked closer, perhaps 'fine' wasn't quite right. She didn't look injured, but she was pale and shared the same pained and worried expression he'd seen on Jack's face.

"Okay, what is it?" he asked them when they reached Tosh's side. "You're worrying me now."

"Well, I…" Tosh started. "The thing is…"

Jack simply put an arm around his shoulders and turned him so he was looking at the rightmost of Tosh's monitors.

It was open on her email inbox, which seemed unusual to Ianto. The only one of them who regularly got any email from outside the internal system was Jack, and those were usually from Whitehall or the Royal Offices.

Leaning closer, he read the subject of the unread message, assuming that was what he had been summoned for.

His heart dropped into his boots as he recognised the name. "Did he…? Has he…?"

"We haven't read it yet," Tosh said quietly. "We were waiting for you before we decided if we should or not."

Ianto opened his mouth to call them ridiculous for considering the idea of _not_ reading it and then realised that he wasn't quite sure if he really wanted to know either.

Which would be worse? If he'd written something that indicated he might have helped, or if he turned them down flat?

While neither eventuality could change the outcome – not now, not all these months later – would it hurt or help to know?


	42. Chapter 42 of 64

"We should read it," Ianto finally said several minutes later. He was fairly sure that reading the reply, whatever it said, was going to be painful, but he knew that he would just keep wondering if they didn't. At least this way he could get some closure on the subject.

"Are you sure?" Tosh didn't look particularly convinced.

"We'll keep thinking about it, otherwise," Ianto said as calmly as he could. "You know we will. We need to read it, and..."

A thought struck him.

"We need to read it and if he is offering help…" He swallowed. "We need to send a reply thanking him and saying that… the research was ceased due to lack of funding… or something like that."

He could feel Jack's hand rubbing supportively across his back, and Ianto unconsciously leant into it.

Tosh bit her lip and scooted forwards in her chair. "I…" She looked back up at him. "You're definitely sure about this?"

Ianto nodded before he could change his mind. "I'm sure."

Tosh moved the cursor over the email in the list, hesitating before clicking.

Ianto could feel his heart racing, and willed Tosh to just _get on with it_. Now that he'd made the decision, he wanted this to be over with.

Even though, logically, he knew that the time between Tosh's click of the mouse and the email opening could only be a fraction of a second, the nerves racing around his body made it feel like hours.

He skipped over the salutations, and barely skimmed across the apologies and reasons why it had taken so long for him to get back to them; they weren't what he was really interested in, they had even less bearing on the situation than his response to their request.

"'If you could send me additional information I would be happy to…'" he read out in an unsteady voice, trailing off as the lump in his throat grew too large to force the air past to speak.

He tried to swallow and couldn't.

"Breathe, Ianto," Jack said behind him, not sounding particularly steady himself. The hand, which had stilled, resumed its sweeps across Ianto's back. "Breathe for me."

Ianto closed his eyes and tried to focus on Jack's voice as he murmured encouragements. He dragged in a deep heaving breath, the air rushing into his burning lungs.

Belatedly, he realised that Jack was all but holding him upright, his own legs evidently having ceased to do so as his brain swirled madly around the fact that the Japanese expert had actually agreed.

If the timing had been right; if Dr Tanizaki had been able to get back to them immediately; if Lisa's deterioration had just been that bit slower…

"You can't let yourself think like that, you'll drive yourself crazy with what ifs," Jack told him, and Ianto realised that he must have been muttering his thoughts aloud.

Ianto sighed, getting his legs under him properly and standing up straight. "I know, and I told myself I wouldn't start, but it's just…"

"It's hard not to wonder," Tosh said quietly. Ianto nodded, looking down and noticing that Tosh didn't look as if she felt a whole lot better than he did.

"I went through so many possibilities in my mind of what might help her," he sighed. "Finding all of you, then all the things we looked into together… even though I tried not to, my brain would bombard me with the what ifs every time, both good and bad."

He shook his head. "I still occasionally wake up and think she'll be there when I come into work," Ianto admitted. "Not often, but…"

"Just enough to hurt," Jack said, the pain clear in his voice. Ianto wondered if he was speaking from experience. Nearly a century and a half, Jack had said. How many loved ones had he seen meet an untimely end? How many times had his brain tricked him into hoping for just a little bit longer with a lover?

"Yeah," he sighed. "I… it's stupid, but I feel like moving is going to help. Sort of like a new start – waking up somewhere new, somewhere I never slept while thinking of her alone back here."

"When do you move?" Tosh asked, the colour slowly beginning to return to her cheeks.

"Saturday." Ianto had been keen to move in at the earliest date available. He still had another three weeks' rent paid up in his current flat – and had given notice that he would be giving it up after that – but, however illogical his overly optimistic hopes for what the move would give him were, he just wanted to get out of there.

Even with Torchwood's usual demands on his time, he was almost packed. A lot of things had never been _unpacked_ on his return to Cardiff. That flat had never been a long-term solution. He had hoped, of course, to be moving somewhere nicer with Lisa when she was recovered enough, but…

He pushed that thought away. It really would do no good to dwell on it. There were things to be done.

"Do you need…?"

He cut Jack off. "I'll be fine. Now," he took a deep breath, "we have an email to send."


	43. Chapter 43 of 64

Ianto was taping a box shut when there was a knock at his front door.

He glanced at his watch, frowning slightly. It was barely 8.30 - the rental people weren't supposed to be dropping off the van until 9 - and he couldn't imagine who else it could be.

He wasn't going to quibble if the rental had arrived early, though. He was expecting a call any minute telling him about some sort of emergency at the Hub that would require his presence - despite Jack having given him the day off to move. The earlier he could get started the better.

It was times like this when he missed London. For all its faults, working at Torchwood One had had its good points. For a start, the sheer number of employees had meant that, as he hadn't been a field agent and had not been working on any of the high profile or extremely time sensitive research projects, weekends had been more than something that happened to other people.

Even as a non-field agent in Cardiff, days off were a rare luxury – and there was a little voice in the back of his mind suggesting that, with his new firearms training, he might end up in the field eventually after all, a prospect he wasn't sure he was entirely comfortable with.

"Just a minute!" he called, cutting the end of the tape and setting the roll down on top of the box before getting to his feet and going to answer the door.

The face on the other side was a surprise. "Jack!" He stepped back automatically to allow Jack to pass him and enter the flat. "What are you doing here?" He wondered if somehow he had missed his phone ringing. "Am I needed for something?"

Jack shook his head and smiled. "No, no. It's actually looking pretty quiet at the moment – touch wood – and I thought you might need a hand." He looked around and noticed all the taped up and labelled boxes. "Although you seem to be doing a pretty good job on your own so far."

"There's a rental van arriving in half an hour," Ianto explained to him. "I want to be ready for it."

Jack shrugged out of his coat, tossing it over the back of the sofa and clapping his hands together. "So, what _can_ I do? Point me in a direction."

Picking up the coat and hanging it over the top of his own on a hook next to the door, Ianto thought for a second and then pointed towards the kitchen. "There's bubble wrap and newspaper on the counter, grab a box; there's a whole lot of plates and bowls still needing to be packed up."

Jack straightened up and saluted heartily, a wide smile on his face. "Yes, sir!"

Thankfully, the next knock at the door, nearly forty minutes later, _was_ the man from the rental agency, dropping off the small van Ianto would have the use of for the rest of the day.

***

It occurred to Ianto later, as he and Jack were between them lugging a fairly light but awkwardly bulky bookcase up the – thankfully single – flight of stairs to his new flat that it was lucky Jack had showed up that morning to help. Luckier still that, a few hours later, the Rift and any nearby aliens were still co-operating and allowing him to remain.

He'd been so organised packing everything up and sorting out the van, but he had no idea how he had planned to move some of his furniture without help. Much of it could be – and had been – taken apart into easily manageable blocks, but there were bookcases, and a slightly wobbly wardrobe, and a few items still in the back of that old storage unit that he had never been able to find the room for in the old flat.

"Ianto?"

Jack's voice brought him back to himself and he realised that he had drifted off into thought, freezing halfway up the stairs with a bookcase still in his arms. "Sorry." He shook his head and they started to move again. "Just wondering how my brain had planned to do this part if you hadn't shown up."

"You'd have figured something out," Jack said confidently as he shouldered Ianto's new front door open. "I know you."

Ianto shook his head. While Jack's belief in his ability to solve just about any logistical problem was flattering, he knew it was a little deluded. And yet he couldn't find it in himself to shatter Jack's illusion. There was a warm little spark deep inside him at the knowledge that someone thought that much of him.

***

By late-afternoon, all his furniture was reassembled and in position, the boxes and boxes of his possessions were stacked about in the relevant rooms, awaiting unpacking, and Ianto collapsed onto his sofa, utterly drained - both emotionally and physically. Cardboard boxes of Lisa's things, never unpacked from the move from London and mostly stored until now in the storage unit, had been difficult to face.

Part of him had been tempted to leave them there a little longer, but he _did_ want to finally clear out the unit, and all the bad memories associated with it. It just wasn't as easy in practice as it had seemed in theory.

If Jack hadn't been there, encouraging him that he might as well get the move complete today while he could - there for Ianto to lean on when they got to the boxes – he might have given in and put it off. The boxes were now stacked in his otherwise empty spare room. He knew he would have to properly deal with them eventually, but _that_, he would delay a bit longer.

Jack sank down beside him a moment later, his head dropping back against the back of the sofa and twisting to look at Ianto. "You okay?"

Ianto nodded against the sofa cushion. "Yeah. More or less."

'Thanks to you,' he wanted to add, but didn't. Couldn't.

He hoped that Jack knew anyway; knew how much he appreciated Jack's support in the last month, even though he didn't verbalise it.

Jack glanced at his watch, and Ianto was surprised to find a voice in his head urging him to say or do _something_ – anything – to persuade Jack not to leave. There hadn't been a phone call from the Hub, he wasn't _needed_ anywhere…

"Right then," Jack said, before he could think of anything to say. "I know it's still pretty early, but we skipped lunch, and you have no unpacked kitchen utensils, so I'm thinking pizza?"

A smile spread across Ianto's face and a knot inside his chest dissolved. "Pizza it is."


	44. Chapter 44 of 64

"_Ianto…"_

Ianto sighed and put down the folder he was sorting. Jack had that slightly wheedling tone in his voice that told Ianto he was probably about to ask the semi-impossible of him. He tapped his comm. unit. "Yes, Jack?"

"_When you tidied up and reorganised everything last month, where did you put the basketball?"_

Ianto blinked in the dull lighting of the archives. "The basketball?" He wasn't sure he even remembered finding a basketball, let alone where he had put it. He was even less sure about why Jack might possibly be looking for one.

"_Yes, Ianto, the basketball."_

"I'm sorry, I don't rem…" Oh, but now that he thought about it. "Actually, no, I do remember. It's in the back of the stationery cupboard, along with various other miscellanies that didn't have anywhere better to go."

"_Brilliant."_ Ianto could hear the grin in Jack's voice, even over the comms. _"You should come up and join us, by the way, Ianto."_

"Join you in…?" Ianto wasn't sure he wanted to know what sort of research they were doing that involved a basketball.

"_What do you think?"_ Jack asked. _"A game of basketball."_

"A game of basketball," Ianto repeated slowly, wanting to make quite sure that he had heard correctly.

"_Yeah,"_ Jack said. _"It's been so quiet all day; I thought we could do with a bit of fun. And we haven't had a game of Hub basketball in a really long time."_

That much was true, as – unless they'd indulged in a game or two while he was in hospital and then recuperating at home, which he doubted – there hadn't been a game in the six months he'd been there.

"No thanks," Ianto said firmly, remembering with a wince a painful incident that had occurred while he had been playing basketball in a PE lesson at school in his very early teens. "I think I might just finish up down here."

"_Oh come on…"_ Jack's pout was audible. _"The archives will still be there tomorrow. Come on up and join in."_ He paused. _"For me?"_

Ianto sighed and wondered, dismayed, if he was starting to turn into a bit of a pushover. "Oh, all right, I'll come up," he said. "But…" He forestalled Jack's crow of celebration. "I'm not going to actually play. For one, that would make us an odd number and that's not going to be fair. And two, I nearly broke my hand playing basketball at school; I'm not exactly desperate for a repeat performance."

"_Fine, okay, you may have a point,"_ Jack admitted. _"Just get yourself up here – no saying 'just one more folder' and hiding down there for another hour."_

Ianto shook his head, despite the fact there was no one but him there to see it. "I'll be right up."

***

The game was already underway when he reached the main Hub floor. Well, the ball was being thrown around and there was a lot of yelling, so he assumed it was a game. He wondered briefly how he had managed to miss the fact that there was a basketball hoop mounted high on the wall near the door. It wasn't an area of the Hub he'd ever consciously looked closely at, but he _thought_ he knew the place pretty well.

"Over here!"

"Oi!"

"To me!"

"No!"

It took several minutes of watching the energetic chaos in front of him before he even managed to figure out that there were in fact teams - Gwen and Owen against Jack and Tosh. Even if it did appear to be every man for himself at first.

Dropping to the stairs leading up to the office area, he grinned to himself as the others broke almost every rule in the book, bumping, shoving and blatantly grabbing the ball from each other's hands.

By the time he saw it coming, he didn't have time to twist away. The recipient of an enthusiastic nudge from Gwen as she wrested the ball from him, Jack fell over his own feet and toppled straight into Ianto's lap.

Ianto took a second to catch his breath, winded a little from the impact. Jack didn't shift off immediately, and it wasn't until Tosh cried his name loudly in protest that Ianto realised how distracted he had become with Jack in his personal space.

He looked over just in time to see Gwen catch the basketball under the net.

"Ianto! You're impartial; tell me that point is disallowed!" Tosh called out. "It's clearly cheating to go for the net when your team-mate just shoved your opponent to the floor!"

Ianto pushed gently at Jack, who slid to the floor beside his feet. "Technically, yes it's cheating."

Tosh pointed at Owen. "See?"

"But," Ianto continued, "so was most of what was going on before that. You were all cheating shamelessly."

"I don't think we were cheating," Gwen said. "Not really."

"Whatever it was, it wasn't in the rules. In my book, that counts as cheating."

"And I'm the only one who's allowed to cheat at Hub games," Jack interjected, climbing to his feet.

"Who made that rule up?" Owen asked, taking the ball from Gwen.

"I did," Jack told them all, grinning widely. "And, since I'm the boss, what I say goes."

He offered Ianto a hand up, holding the other one out for the ball.

"And right now, I say it's long past time we _all_ took our new colleague out for a drink."

"Are you buying then?" Owen asked, smirking. Ianto saw what was about to happen and grabbed the basketball from Jack before he could toss it at Owen's head. He knew from experience quite how much damage one of those things could do – they were far from light.

"Actually, Owen," Jack said, "just for that, _you're_ buying."

**Author's Note 2:** Ianto's 'painful incident' involving basketball at school is loosely based on my own, except I actually DID break a finger. I haven't played it since. (Even at school they let me skip it every year afterwards.)


	45. Chapter 45 of 64

"There are a few small spots of residual Rift energy," Tosh said, putting the scanner back into her bag. "But nothing major."

Jack looked around again; nothing seemed out of place or unusual. "I'm not seeing anything here." He shook his head. "If anything came through, it must have been small. And it's not here anymore."

"Is it possible that nothing actually came through?" Gwen asked uncertainly. "Can Rift spikes do that?"

"It's happened before," Jack said. "Or at least we think it has. Hopefully it wasn't just that we didn't find what came through. It's rare, though."

Gwen looked around. "What do we do now, then?"

Jack sighed. "We wait. See if there are any reports of unusual occurrences made to the police, watch out for strange injuries coming into A&E…" He hated when their only option was patience. He could be patient – he would have gone stir crazy at some point in the last century if he couldn't – but it wasn't his preferred state. He would much rather be out doing something than sitting around waiting.

Taking one last look around, the four of them headed back for the SUV. In reality, such a small spike was never going to require the presence of all four of them, but the Rift had been quiet for several days, so the slightest hint of actual activity had them all leaping to action – despite Owen and Gwen both suffering slightly from hangovers after the team trip to the pub the day before.

Jack touched his earpiece. "Unless there's anything useful coming up on the scans there, we're going to head back now," he told Ianto, who was monitoring from back in the Hub. "There's nothing visible here."

"_There's nothing coming up on the scans either,"_ Ianto's voice said through the comms.

"Right." Jack sighed; he'd hoped that something might have shown up – nothing dangerous, preferably, but _something_. "We'll be back soon."

***

When, by the next morning, there was still nothing showing up on any of the scans, no reports received by the police that sounded suspicious and no peculiar ailments turning up at the hospital, Jack had to concede that the likelihood was that, despite the spike in the Rift, nothing had actually come through.

He spent the first several hours of the morning chained to his desk, working through the last of that month's paperwork, thankful for the steady supply of coffee Ianto was providing him with. He knew the others were making similar attempts to keep busy, but suspected that they – like him – were hoping for some sort of minor emergency to crop up soon - before they all went mad.

***

The report came through just before lunchtime, in the middle of a debate over the options for lunch orders. Owen was arguing hard for pizza, while Tosh dug in her heels over a new deli that had just opened up around the corner from the Plass.

"The filters have picked up something odd in a call to the local coppers," Ianto said loudly, interrupting the argument as he dropped the stack of new takeaway menus he'd gone to gather from upstairs in front of them.

The bickering ended at once. "What did it say?" Jack asked him, getting to his feet in preparation.

"It wasn't very clear," Ianto replied. "I don't think the caller really knew what to report, but it was something about several small luminously coloured creatures running across the bottom of his garden. He seemed to be worrying if they had escaped from a laboratory, or something."

"Right," Jack said decisively, taking a step towards his office so he could collect his coat. "Gwen, with me; we're going to go have a little visit and see what we can find out." From what he'd seen on her first day, she definitely needed a bit of training on how to question people about possible alien activity – whether they were a victim or a potential threat.

"Tosh, Owen, see if we can get any sightings of these things on the CCTV network, or if anything shows up at all on any of our scans."

He startled slightly as he realised that Ianto had beaten him to the coat hook and had it ready for him to slip into – he'd been doing that more and more lately; Jack wondered if Ianto had even realised. "Ianto, since you're definitely getting a lot more proficient down there than any of us, take a look and see if there's anything you can find in the archives about small, luminous coloured… things."

Gwen scurrying behind him, Jack practically ran to the door. As much as occasional quiet days and downtime were nice, _this_ was more like it.


	46. Chapter 46 of 64

"Remind me never, ever to complain again about it being too bloody quiet," Owen groaned, head against the wall as he, Tosh and Ianto slouched, exhausted, on the ratty Hub sofa. Jack and Gwen sat at their feet, slumped over the coffee table. Ianto wasn't entirely sure that Gwen wasn't actually asleep already.

He twisted his arm closer to his face, focussing tiredly on the face of his watch. 1.35pm. Definitely lunchtime, but he doubted any of them had enough energy to move to go make, or collect, lunch – not even Jack, which was a rare event.

He felt like he hadn't really slept for days, and it wasn't so far off the truth. He wasn't sure any of them would be complaining about a bit of quiet for a long time, not after the last few days…

***

Jack and Gwen's information finding mission turned up nothing of use. Brightly coloured and about the size of small cats didn't tell them anything they hadn't already gleaned from the police report, but the baffled man didn't seem to know anything else.

Ianto's fairly brief attempts at research in the archives only told him they didn't have enough information to narrow anything down; small brightly coloured creatures weren't exactly the rarest things to come through the Rift.

Thankfully, Tosh and Owen were a little bit luckier with the search of the CCTV network, spotting the creatures in question as they scampered across a street just around the corner from the man's house.

Even on the black and white camera picture, it was painfully obvious how brightly coloured the creatures were. Unfortunately, the CCTV image was from some time ago, and they were nowhere to be seen in the vicinity now. They needed a better way of locating them.

It was little more than luck when, as Tosh was scrolling out through the city's CCTV network in the direction of travel, Owen spotted a swift movement along the bottom of the camera.

Closer examination of the footage indicated that these were at least some of their missing aliens, so they contacted Jack and Gwen and set them on the trail.

Forty minutes later – after some more-than-borderline illegal driving on Jack's part, and rather a lot of running on both Jack and Gwen's parts, they had managed to catch up with a couple of the small furry creatures and get them back to the Hub.

Close up, they were almost bright enough to be glowing.

As soon as they were back, Tosh and Owen took over. Every test under the sun – and a few that Ianto thought weren't – was run to find out if there was anything that might help them locate the others. Repeated viewings of the first CCTV footage indicated that at least nine creatures were out there and they had so far contained only two.

As he left Tosh and Owen to their work and headed back to the archives with a handful more information to work with, Ianto hoped that the other seven they'd spotted on the tapes were all of them.

He did have a vague memory of seeing something similar in one of the cabinets he had sorted through a few weeks before, so he set to work digging into the 'alien sightings and other related incidents' section of the cabinet he was thinking of.

A short while later and he was in luck, and had a thin folder in hand with information – and a few rather blurry early colour photos – on some creatures that had appeared through the Rift over 60 years before, near the end of World War II. While he couldn't be certain, they bore more than a little resemblance to the creatures Owen and Tosh had upstairs.

After reading it through quickly, Ianto knew instantly that if these were in fact the same creatures, he had some unfortunate news for the rest of the team. With a gestational period of less than a day, half of Wales could be overrun with small furry aliens within weeks.

The phrase 'breeding like bunnies' just couldn't quite go far enough to describe this.

Still trying to wrap his mind around quite how quickly these things could multiply, Ianto made his way back to the others with the folder.

When he got there, Tosh was no longer down in the autopsy bay with Owen but was typing frantically at her workstation, Jack hanging over her shoulder.

Handing the folder to Jack, Ianto took a closer look at the code she was typing, understanding every third line at best. "What are you trying to do?"

She twisted to look at him very briefly before turning her attention back to the monitor. "Owen and I found a distinctive energy signature these little guys have, although it's weak and not in a range we normally monitor. I need to recalibrate a few things before we'll be able to search the city for the energy signature."

Ianto ran a hand through his hair. "Is it going to take long?" If he was right, their furry little friends could be doubling in number as they spoke.

"Oh dear." Ianto looked up and saw the look on Jack's face. He had the folder open in his hands, and Ianto knew which bit of the information he had just read. "Tosh, you might want to sacrifice perfection for speed in this case. If this is right, these things breed like mad. We need to find them as soon as possible."

***

Tosh's 'quick but not perfect' program proved very effective at pinpointing the locations of the small creatures, but unfortunately not very fast to run. As a result, by the time two or three of them could make it out to a location, the creatures were sometimes no longer there.

Most scans would result in the location and catching of - at the most - two creatures, and they knew the slower they were in catching them all, the harder it was going to become.

They worked straight through the night that Wednesday, running out to one location or another every hour as an updated scan finished. All night Wednesday turned into all day Thursday.

Ianto found himself drafted into the field by the middle of Thursday morning. They took turns to nap on the sofa in between runs across Cardiff and scrambles through fields on the outskirts of the city.

By Thursday evening their legs were aching and they were exhausted, but the scan was still tossing out results; their work was not yet done.

Thursday evening became Thursday night, and Thursday night, Friday morning.

Two cells in the vaults – one for each gender of the furry creatures, to avoid creating even more of them - were almost full to bursting by the time they returned from the last trip out to discover a clear map on the latest scan.

Almost as one, they had collapsed onto the sofa in a heap, quite happy to not move for a week.

***

There was a long moment of silence, and despite all his best intentions, Ianto felt himself start to drift off.

Jack's voice cut through the quiet a minute later. "Did anyone check how long these things live?"


	47. Chapter 47 of 64

Jack shrugged on a T-shirt and shuddered, trying to put the nightmare behind him. It was images like that that stopped him trying to sleep more often than he did. If it wasn't for the fact that he was sure his brain would send him mad if he had no sleep at all, he would never even try.

It wasn't like he generally needed the sleep physically. He'd noticed that he could cope on less and less sleep every year since he had landed back on Earth, and he could function for days on end with no sleep at all. But sometimes he missed it. He wasn't sure he remembered the last time he'd been able to sleep properly - undisturbed - on a regular basis.

He hadn't particularly intended on actually falling asleep that night, but after the last three days of running madcap around Cardiff after small fuzzy alien creatures – not dangerous but not something they could have left to roam free – he had crashed almost as soon as his head had hit the pillow.

Only to be woken a few hours later by… he shivered again. He hadn't dreamt of that incident for so long; he didn't know what had brought it back up now.

Knowing that – even as tired as he still was – he wouldn't sleep any more that night, he climbed up the ladder to his office. He might as well get a little work done.

The single petal sitting in the middle of his desk chilled him to the core. He was rooted to the spot, barely able to breathe, until he noticed a movement in the main Hub.

A few seconds later and the dark shape materialised into Ianto. Jack blinked deliberately, making sure that it _was_ actually Ianto and not just his imagination.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, his voice still thick with sleep.

Ianto looked up quickly from the folder he was carrying, clearly startled. Recognition dawned in his eyes a moment later and he relaxed. "Couldn't sleep," he shrugged. "Thought I might as well work."

On any normal night, Jack might not have questioned that any further. Everyone on his team was prone to occasional bouts of insomnia; that was just one of the wonderful things working for Torchwood did for you.

But tonight, he hadn't expected that to be a problem. Given that _he_ had all but collapsed at the brink of exhaustion, he had assumed the same would be true for his team. Ianto had certainly seemed tired enough when he and the others had eventually moved for their respective homes early in the afternoon.

If Ianto was having difficulty sleeping after that, something was clearly _not right_.

He took a step closer to the younger man. "Hey, what's wrong?"

Ianto shook his head. "It's nothing, I'm okay. Fine."

Jack didn't believe that for an instant. "If you were okay you would be at home, asleep."

Ianto's internal struggle was visible on his face. "I… it's just…"

Taking his arm gently, Jack guided him to the sofa, sitting down beside him. "Remember what I said all those months ago?" he asked quietly. "It's still true, I'm here if you need to talk. Even in the middle of the night when you can't sleep."

Ianto sighed and closed his eyes. "Tomorrow – no, well, today, technically – would have been mine and Lisa's fifth anniversary." When he opened his eyes again his expression was bleak.

Jack swallowed and wished he could just take Ianto into his arms and comfort him properly. "I'm sorry."

Ianto chuckled mirthlessly. "I know when I met her I could never have imagined this, losing her so soon. Of course, when I met her I couldn't even imagine she would be interested in me, but…"

"Tell me about it," Jack said suddenly, impulsively, out of any other ideas on ways he might help. "Tell me how you met, you and Lisa." He hoped the story would bring a smile to Ianto's face; he hated feeling helpless like this when Ianto was upset.

Jack wasn't sure if it was to avoid having to make eye contact while he told the story, or if Ianto was looking for the comfort of contact, but Ianto leant into him slightly, his head resting gently on Jack's shoulder.

"I had just started Sixth Form College," he started a little falteringly. "I… I told you before about ending up in a young offenders' institute, didn't I?"

Jack nodded against the top of Ianto's head. "Yeah."

"Well, I got out right before my GCSEs, and it turns out that two months isn't really enough to make up for skipping school for the best part of two years. I scraped past a few of them, but the only way the local sixth form would accept me for A-levels was if I re-sat at least some of my GCSEs that Christmas."

Jack could feel him shifting to get comfortable. "I studied most of the summer, trying to catch up on coursework I'd missed. My uncle said I should take some time off, go have fun, but… the only friends I had at that point were the ones I'd gotten into trouble with. Seemed safer to stick with the books."

Jack wanted to say something, but he had no idea what would be appropriate. It didn't seem to matter to Ianto, who ploughed ahead with his story.

"I was doing okay until I started college. Starting A-levels and trying to do the GCSEs too was getting a bit much after a few weeks and I was falling behind, so my uncle got in touch with a service the university were coordinating; he got me a tutor."

Jack's mind ran ahead with the story and leapt to a conclusion. "Lisa?"

Ianto straightened up beside him, finally turning back to meet Jack's eyes. He looked wistful, but the sadness was dissipating. "Lisa." His smile was fond. "She had an… unusual… tutoring style, but it worked. Or at least, I passed all the GCSEs."

Jack shuffled round, twisting so he could face Ianto for the rest of the tale. "And then you started dating?" he asked, although almost as soon as he said it he was adding the numbers in his head and realising they didn't quite fit.

Ianto shook his head. "No. Although, I wouldn't have complained; I pretty much had a crush on her from the word go. But I never thought she was interested."

Jack tilted his head, trying to imagine Ianto as a sixteen year old; trying to imagine what he'd have thought of sixteen year old Ianto if he'd met him as a teenager himself, as Lisa had. He really couldn't see how she could have _not_ been interested. "So, what changed?"

Ianto smiled, shrugging one shoulder. "I finished school."

* * *

Look out for a oneshot posted tomorrow (Monday) that continues Ianto's story… from his viewpoint as a 17 year old!


	48. Chapter 48 of 64

Ianto yawned a little as he came to the end of his story, and the folder he had managed to keep a grip on throughout started to slip from his fingers.

Jack pulled it from his hand and looked firmly at Ianto. "You need to get some more sleep."

Ianto's jaw clenched as he attempted to hide another yawn. "No really. I'm okay." He made a move to take the folder back. "I'll just…"

Jack held the folder out of his reach. "No, you won't 'just'. You're exhausted."

Ianto was blinking furiously to keep his eyes open. "But I was going to…"

Jack fixed him with a look. "You were going to, what? Whatever it is, I'm sure you can do it tomorrow."

Ianto gestured towards the folder, which Jack was still holding behind him where Ianto couldn't reach it. "I was watching some of the routine scans run and I noticed what seemed to be some funny looking weather patterns. I just wanted to check against historical data, see if I was right."

Jack brought the folder back in front of him and flipped the front cover open, noting that it was in fact the data Ianto would need for that. Funny weather patterns, combined with the dream – no, nightmare - he'd awoken from and the petal on his desk. He had a really horrible feeling about all of it.

"How about you show me the data from tonight and _I'll_ compare it with this while you get some sleep?"

He could see the battle going on behind Ianto's eyes. "But I really should…"

Jack dropped the folder onto the coffee table beside them and took hold of Ianto's shoulders gently. "Sleep. We might end up needing some of your particular talents tomorrow, and it will be no good if you're too exhausted to perform them."

"All right, all right," Ianto mumbled. "I'll show you what I was looking at and then…" His eyes screwed up as a huge irrepressible yawn interrupted his sentence.

"And then you'll go home and sleep," Jack finished for him. "Or, if you think you're still too tired to drive, you can crash out under my office again."

Ianto bit his lip as Jack got to his feet and pulled Ianto up, clearly tempted by the prospect of a warm bed that he didn't have to drive to – even if it was just a camp bed. "Honestly, it would be fine," he added, reading Ianto's weariness and hoping to sway him. "I'm not going to sleep any more tonight, anyway."

And if the thought of Ianto curled up, sleeping peacefully in his bed appealed to him in any other ways… well, he'd keep that thought to himself.

***

Less than fifteen minutes later, Jack was ensconced at Tosh's workstation with the relevant data and Ianto was fast asleep under his office – Jack knew he was asleep because he'd been dead to the world even before Jack had finished saying goodnight and climbed the ladder back out to the Hub.

He scrolled through the scan data Ianto had noticed earlier. Something definitely wasn't right with it, and he had a horrible feeling about what it could be. They hadn't caused serious trouble for years, but he had always suspected his previous encounter with them would not be his last.

Frowning for a second, he clicked open the desktop calendar. Saturday 29th July, the last Saturday of the month; perfect timing, really.

If anyone was going to have information on 'their' comings and goings, it would be her, and he hadn't seen her in too long. He glanced back towards his office, thinking of the man sleeping below it.

He knew that, although he'd taken his mind off his sadness earlier, the rest of the day was going to be tough on Ianto.

The only thing he could think to do was keep him busy enough that he wouldn't think about it too hard, and following up on this possible case seemed a perfect way to do that. And with any luck his suspicions would turn out to be just that - suspicions.

Jack glanced at his watch and hoped Ianto would sleep for several more hours. When he awoke, operation 'keep Ianto distracted' would begin.

Starting with a little trip to see an old friend.


	49. Chapter 49 of 64

Ianto barely had time to read a few words from the notice outside the hall as Jack dragged him inside. "Why are we here?" he hissed at Jack, receiving a frustratingly enigmatic grin and head bob combination in reply.

"You'll see."

Jack had been even more mysterious than usual ever since he'd woken up, and Ianto was growing sure that he was up to something.

Despite the time, Jack had still been the only other one in the Hub when he had roused at nearly 10.30. Relieved – he didn't know if he wanted to explain to the others why he'd ended up spending the night at the Hub – he had stumbled down to his locker where he had stashed several changes of clothes earlier that week, when it began to look more and more likely he was going to be co-opted into helping in the field.

Thankfully he still had a clean set of clothing left, although he was down to the last one. Suspecting that the situation of the last week could and would likely arise again, he had made a note to bring in more as he ducked under a shower in the tiny communal washroom.

When he'd emerged back into the Hub, clean and dressed, he'd barely had time to greet the rest of the team and set some coffee going before Jack had told him to grab his coat; they were going on a little trip.

The talk and display was already well underway when he and Jack slipped in the double doors. The speaker, an elderly woman who, despite her age, still clearly had a bright spark of life in her, looked up as they entered. Her eyes alighted on Jack, and even though she didn't pause in her presentation, a fond smile spread across her features.

Ianto suspected he knew how she felt. Sometimes, just seeing Jack could cheer him up and make him smile, too.

With a hand on his back, Jack urged him into a seat next to him at the back of the room to watch the rest of the talk.

The woman – Ianto hadn't had time to check if her name had been on the poster outside – was clearly enthusiastic about her subject. Fairies. Ianto had never been one to believe in them, but she clearly did. And with everything he saw almost daily on the job, who was he to say she couldn't be right?

He shot a sidelong glance at Jack. He looked sceptical, but he too had a fond smile on his face.

They hung back as she brought the talk to a close and the rest of the audience filtered out. "She's still getting it all wrong," Jack muttered sadly.

When the last of the audience had left, Jack slid out of his seat and strode up to the front; Ianto followed a second later, still wondering what was going on.

That Jack and the lady knew each other was evident. Jack had been around for a long time, so the fact that he knew a lot of people in the city was no big surprise, but Ianto wasn't quite sure what they were doing there - or rather, what _he_ was doing there.

Was this something to do with a case? Jack hadn't mentioned anything going on, and why would he have brought _Ianto_? Unless… He filed away the thought, making a note to ask Jack about it later.

"It's good to see you again, Estelle," Jack was saying as he joined the pair.

"You too, Jack," she replied, smiling up at him.

Jack picked up some of the slides she'd been showing, holding one up to look more closely. "When did you say you'd taken these? I don't remember seeing these ones before."

"Oh, a few days ago," she said, handing him another.

"And where was that?"

"In Roundstone Wood."

Ianto thought for a second; that wasn't very far away.

Jack looked at yet another slide, sighing deeply.

"What is it?" Ianto asked, concerned by the worried look that was falling over Jack's face.

Jack shook his head.

"Jack and I have always disagreed about fairies," Estelle said, turning for the first time to fully face Ianto. "I only ever see the good ones." She twisted back to the table of photos. "He only ever sees the bad."

Jack shook his head. "They're all bad," he said firmly.

"And I don't accept that!" Estelle declared. "Oh, Jack, if you could have seen them in the woods. They were happy and dancing and the fairy lights were shining."

Jack sighed, and there was a look in his eyes Ianto couldn't decipher. "Do you have any more photos, Estelle?"

She nodded, laughing quietly in a fond, long-suffering manner. "Yes, at home."

Jack smiled winningly. "We're going to need to see them all."


	50. Chapter 50 of 64

Ianto smiled to himself as he and Jack carried in Estelle's talk materials from the SUV. He had no idea how she had managed to get it all down there on the bus by herself, or how she'd been planning to get it all back again. It had taken some convincing on Jack's part even to get her to agree to their offer of a lift home – even though they were heading this way anyway to pick up the photos.

Clearly, no matter how frail she outwardly appeared, Estelle could be a force to be reckoned with when required.

"Thank you, boys," Estelle said, putting her handbag down on the kitchen table. "You're true gentlemen, both of you." She smiled at Jack and then at Ianto. "Just like his father was."

Ianto blinked. "You knew his father?" He was quite certain that the logistics of that just didn't work out.

"Oh yes," Estelle replied, a nostalgic smile on her face. "During the war. Oh, he was dashing, was Jack." She turned around to face a small shelf, scattered with photo frames and assorted knick-knacks. "I think I still have… ah yes." She picked up a small frame, passed it to Ianto. He took it and examined the photo in it. A uniformed man sat on a bench at the seaside, his arm around the beautiful young woman beside him.

He assumed the young woman was Estelle, and the man… He looked a little harder, the man's face just confirming his suspicions. "What happened?" he asked softly, handing the photo back.

"It was wartime," Estelle said, replacing the frame on the shelf. "He went abroad to fight, we lost touch." She smiled over at Jack. "And then Jack got in touch a few years ago, which was a lovely surprise."

Ianto couldn't help but smile as he watched Jack and Estelle exchange fond looks.

"Right, those photos," Estelle said, turning around and looking through a stack of folders on a table. She pulled one out, handing it to Jack. "They're not much, mostly just pictures of the area."

"Thank you," Jack said sincerely.

There was something against the back of Ianto's ankles and he jumped. He realised that he must have made some sort of verbal exclamation too, as both Estelle and Jack turned to look at him.

"Oh Moses," Estelle said, shaking her head fondly and crouching down. When she stood back up she had a jet black cat nestled in her arms. "It's about time you went outside, I think," she said to the cat, stroking its back.

She carted the cat to the back door, opening it and shooing him out.

"We should be going," Jack said, sounding just a little reluctant. "But the next time you see these creatures, you call us immediately."

Estelle nodded. "Mm-hm."

Jack wrapped an arm around her. "It's important to me, okay. You be careful, and call us night or day, whatever the time."

"I'll be fine, Jack, there's nothing to worry about," Estelle chided gently.

Jack just pulled her closer. "Just be careful, for me."

Ianto swallowed a lump in his throat at the look on Jack's face as he bent to press an affectionate kiss to the top of Estelle's head. In the years he'd been alive, Ianto knew Jack must have lost many lovers and, for the first time, Ianto was really seeing what it had done to Jack; seeing that inevitable mortality wasn't the only way Jack had lost.

How many lovers had Jack been forced to leave before they noticed he was… different?

He kept stealing glances at Jack as they walked down Estelle's front path back to the SUV. It was almost visible as Jack forcibly pushed the pall of sadness away from him.

"Do you get to see her often?" he asked gently, climbing into the passenger seat of the SUV.

Jack shrugged, and the engine roared to life. "Now and then. Not as often as I'd like; not as often as I probably should."

Ianto nodded. "But you worry."

They pulled away, heading back to the Hub. "Yeah," Jack sighed. "Especially when… She sees them as happy, joyful creatures, calls them fairies… She doesn't know what they truly are, how dangerous they are."

Ianto frowned. "You don't call them fairies?"

Jack shook his head. "They come from the dawn of time, wreak havoc across the ages. How can you give that a name?"

There was silence in the car for a long moment as they sped through Cardiff.

"Why today, Jack? How did you know she'd have new photos?" Ianto eventually asked. "And why did you bring _me_?"

"I didn't know, not for sure," Jack replied, not taking his eyes off the road. "Just a hunch. And I brought you because…" He trailed off and sighed.

Ianto bit his lip and went for it. "Is this anything to do with last night?"

Jack hesitated.

"Those weather patterns, I mean," Ianto clarified. "You never mentioned if you found anything more after you sent me to sleep."

Jack sighed. "Those might be part of it, yes." He glanced over. "I really hope they're nothing to do with them, but I'm definitely worried they might."


	51. Chapter 51 of 64

"Could you bring a new round of coffee up to the conference room in about ten-fifteen minutes?" Jack asked as they re-entered the Hub. "Although I do hope we aren't about to have any trouble from… them, I want to bring everyone up to speed, just in case."

Ianto nodded. "Absolutely."

He handed the folder of photographs to Jack and left him to round up the others as he went to fire up the coffee machine.

By the time he entered the conference room with the tray of drinks ten minutes later, the rest were already into a debate on the legitimacy of the photographs that had been projected onto the screen.

He frowned for a moment as he passed the mugs around, trying to recall the name generally given to the pictures in question.

"Because I wrote an essay on the Cottingley glass plate photographs at school, that's why," Gwen said defensively as Owen prodded her, and Ianto nodded to himself – ah yes, that was it. "Later in life, the girls admitted they were fakes."

"Why are we discussing this anyway, Jack?" Owen asked pointedly. Ianto sat down at the other side of the table, leaving the explanations to Jack. It wasn't like he really understood what was going on himself.

Jack touched a button on a small remote on the table and the photograph on the screen changed to one of the ones Estelle had taken a few nights before. "This is why."

Everyone looked, but the others still looked confused. "That isn't really making anything clearer," Owen said, turning back to Jack.

"This photo, and several others," Jack started, "were taken by a friend of mine, not far from here, a few days ago."

"Hang on," said Gwen, looking suspiciously at Jack. "Are you telling us that fairies are real, and they're alien?"

"Yes, they're real," Jack answered, and Ianto – watching closely – could see him shudder uncomfortably. "Although the name 'fairies' doesn't do them justice. And they're not alien, they're so much worse."

"Worse in what way?" Toshiko asked worriedly.

Gwen shook her head, clearly struggling to assimilate this information. "If they're not alien, then what are they?"

Jack sighed, his shoulders drooping. "They're part of us, part of our world, yet we know next to nothing about them. So we pretend. We imagine them as happy little creatures with wings, dancing in the moonlight. We fool ourselves into believing that they're good."

There was a pause as silence fell over the room.

"But they're not?" Gwen asked the question Ianto knew was on all of their minds.

"No. Think dangerous, think something you can only half see - like a glimpse, like something out of the corner of your eye, with a touch of myth, a touch of the spirit world, a touch of reality, all jumbled together," Jack said darkly. "Everything spinning together, whirling around – and right across time."

"Shit." Owen summed it up better than Ianto thought any of the rest of them could.

Jack nodded. "Exactly. If they're really around - if it's really them - we need to find them. And soon. Before all hell breaks loose."

"So, where was this sighting your friend took these pictures of, then?" Toshiko asked, pulling out her laptop and efficiently entering information to collect further data.

"In a place called Roundstone Wood," Jack told her.

"Huh, I know the place," Owen said, sounding contemplative. "It has an odd history, though."

Ianto frowned, wracking his brain for any unusual facts about Roundstone Wood.

Jack looked up at Owen, curiosity written plainly across his face. "Oh? Odd in what way?"

"Well, it's always stayed wild," Owen replied. "Developments built up around it, but never destroyed the wood. It's been considered back luck for centuries to even walk in there, let alone anything else."

"I'm not getting anything," Tosh piped up. "No reports, no sightings, no odd readings, nothing."

"You won't pick up any odd readings," Jack said, shaking his head. "They come in under the radar. They do play tricks with the weather, though, so keep an eye out for unusual weather patterns."

Ianto sighed to himself. He almost wished he had never come across those freak meteorological incidents in the early hours of that morning. Wished even more they had never existed for him to find.

Gwen looked faintly horrified. "You mean, even with all of our machines, we can't pick them up, whatever they are?"

Jack shook his head sadly, the look on his face grim. "Nothing can."


	52. Chapter 52 of 64

Ianto looked around the conference room where they were all gathered for the second time that day. On the way back from their scouting mission to Roundstone Woods, Jack, Gwen and Owen had been called to the police station to investigate some suspicious activity.

From the little they had said when they had returned, a body bag hoisted between them, Ianto could tell the video footage they were about to watch was not likely to be pleasant.

"Everyone ready?" Jack's gaze swept the room, pausing on each of them long enough for them to assent before he pressed play.

For the first several seconds of video, nothing happened. The man that now occupied a body bag in cold storage sat on the bench in the police cell, staring blankly ahead.

Suddenly, without any indication as to why, he began to struggle. He grasped at his throat and the walls.

He spluttered, a rose petal falling from his mouth.

Ianto wanted to look away – he could see where this was going – but forced himself to keep his eyes on the screen as the man fell to the floor, writhing and struggling against an unseen attacker.

Just a few minutes after the video had begun, he lay motionless on the floor, a look of agony written across his features. Ianto found himself clearing his throat reflexively, pushing away the slight choking feeling the video had induced.

Jack froze the video and picked up a file they had acquired at the police station. "The dead man was a Mark Goodson. Convicted paedophile, liked to hang around outside schools."

Ianto looked back at the screen and noticed Tosh doing the same. Even for paedophilia – and he had to swallow hard at even thinking it – was this punishment just?

"Why the petals?" Gwen asked, and Ianto's gaze snapped back to the others in the room. Why the petals indeed?

Jack laughed mirthlessly. "Just their idea of a bit of fun."

"Fun?" Gwen sounded almost as if she was choking on the word.

Jack pressed his lips together. "People do get one thing right; they do like to play games. Only their idea of a good game is to torment and kill."

"But _why_?" Gwen persisted.

Jack took a slow breath. "As a punishment, or sometimes as a warning to others." He shook his head just minutely. "They protect their own, and fiercely. The Chosen Ones."

"Chosen Ones?" Tosh queried.

"Certain children," Jack replied. "I don't know. Somehow children and the spirit world just seem to go together."

Silence slipped over them as they processed the information.

"So, how do we stop them?" Tosh asked a long moment later.

Jack sat back thoughtfully. "We need to find out who they want, find their Chosen One. After that…" He sighed. "We can't capture or trap them in any way. They can control the elements – fire, water and air. If they wanted to, they could drag the air right out of our bodies."

He looked faraway for a second, as if something had just occurred to him. "Perhaps they're part Mara."

Ianto and Tosh exchanged questioning looks. "Mara?" Tosh asked.

"A kind of malignant wraith," Jack responded, almost absently, biting his lip gently as he stared soberly into the middle distance. "It's where the word 'nightmare' came from." His demeanour switched in an instant, the dark, foreboding expression reappearing. "They suffocate people in their sleep."

Ianto shuddered, the choking feeling threatening its return. He liked the sound of this less and less the more he learned. A quick glance around the room told him he was far from alone in this sentiment.

"So, what are we actually go…?" Gwen's question was interrupted as the phone rang, startling them all.

Jack leant forward and pulled out the speakerphone unit from the centre of the table, tapping the button to pick up the call. "Yeah?"

"_Jack?_" The voice on the end of the phone was shaky, a little tentative, and Ianto _knew_ he recognised it. "_It's me, Estelle._"

"What is it, Estelle?" Jack asked, the worry bleeding through in his tone.

"_You were right, Jack,_" Estelle replied, her voice wobbling even more. "_They're not all good. I think some of the bad ones have come to me._"

"Stay right where you are. Don't go near them," Jack said fiercely. "We're on our way."


	53. Chapter 53 of 64

"Ianto?" Tosh asked. "Tell me I'm not imagining that."

Ianto shook his head. "You're not imagining it." He and Tosh had stayed behind in the Hub, keeping an eye on sensor readings as Jack, Gwen and Owen sped across the city to Estelle's aid.

"Jack," Toshiko said over the comm. worriedly. "There's something odd going on that I think you should know about."

"_What is it, Tosh?_" Jack asked tersely.

"Well, it's a clear, dry night," Tosh started.

"_Yes,_" Jack replied impatiently. "_And?_"

"Well, it's a clear, dry night – everywhere but one spot, where the scans are reporting heavy rain."

There was a pause on the other end. "_Where?_"

Tosh looked back to the screen, overlaying a street layout on the map showing the weather anomaly. She read out the address and Ianto blanched. He'd been to that address just that afternoon. "Damn," he said quietly, more to himself than to Tosh or any of the others on the end of the comm.

Jack muttered something under his breath, but the comms. didn't quite pick it up, so Ianto couldn't make it out.

Tosh looked to Ianto, her eyebrows raised in a silent question. He nodded, tapping his earpiece to disable the microphone in his comms. "It's Estelle's address."

Tosh heaved a sigh, doing the same. "I suspected as much." She looked back at the monitor again, the small dot from the SUV tracker moving swiftly towards the red splodge indicating the anomalous rainfall.

There was radio silence from the other end too as Ianto and Tosh waited worriedly. Just as the SUV was nearing its destination, the rainfall disappeared, as if it had never been there to start with.

Tosh switched her comm. back on. "Jack?" She waited. "Jack?"

She shook her head. Jack was clearly now paying no attention to the comms. When they looked at the tracker they could see why – the others had reached the house.

Ten minutes later, it was Owen's voice that came to them. "_We're heading back in a few minutes,_" he said flatly.

"Is she…?" Ianto couldn't bring himself to complete the question.

"_We were too late,_" Owen replied shortly. "_We're… bringing Jack back._"

Ianto bit his lip, swallowing hard. He doubted that any of the others – with the possible exception of Gwen, being the only other one 'in' on the secret of Jack's particular problem – would suspect, as he did, that Estelle was more than just Jack's 'old friend'.

"I'll…" Ianto took a breath, closing his eyes and composing himself. "I'll prepare a bay in cold storage?"

"_Please,_" Owen replied in a hushed tone. "_I'm not going to look into the details any further tonight. I think it would just upset Jack more._"

Ianto nodded, forgetting for a second that Owen couldn't see him. "I agree."

When the others returned to the Hub a short while later, Jack just seemed… blank. Owen and Gwen all but led him by the arm from the garage entrance up to his office.

"I'm going to go bring her in, then I think it's probably best if we make ourselves scarce," Owen muttered to Ianto as he walked past after they'd settled Jack at his desk. "I doubt Jack wants us fussing and watching him like this."

Ianto nodded, but he knew that he wouldn't – couldn't – actually do that. He didn't know if Jack would want to talk, but if he did, Ianto would listen. Jack had been there for him when he had needed him, seen him through his worst. Ianto blinked as he realised that not twenty-four hours ago Jack had sat just _there_ on the sofa and let Ianto unload.

He now had the chance to return the favour, and really, it was the least he could do.


	54. Chapter 54 of 64

Ianto kept himself occupied doing a final sweep of the workstations and autopsy bay for any empty mugs or snack wrappers for several minutes after the others left, not wanting to make Jack feel he was crowding or pushing him.

When he ran out of displacement activities, he slowly approached the door to Jack's office, knocking softly on the open frame. Jack looked up from staring at his desk, his eyes glassy.

Ianto leaned against the doorframe. "Do you need… is there anything I can do?" he asked softly. "Or do you just want me to go home?"

Jack didn't answer, and Ianto started to turn to leave; perhaps Owen had been right, and Jack really would be better dealing with this alone.

"No, stay," Jack said hoarsely just as he turned his back fully on him. "I…" He cleared his throat. "I could definitely use the company."

Ianto turned back and nodded. "Coffee?"

Jack shook his head. "Not tonight." He spun on his office chair, pushing back to open a low cupboard door behind and to the side of his desk, pulling out a decanter and two glass tumblers. Standing up, he gestured back out of the door with the decanter.

Ianto stood back, letting Jack pass him to put the glasses and the decanter down on the coffee table before following him in sinking onto the sofa.

He sat in silence as Jack poured two generous measures into the glasses, waiting to see if Jack would talk on his own.

Jack took a sip of the brandy, bright eyes staring into nothingness over Ianto's shoulder. "Oh, Estelle," he whispered.

Ianto picked up his own glass, swirling the liquid around the sides of the glass while he considered his next words. "You were in love with her, weren't you?" he eventually said quietly, gently. "I mean, I know there was no way it was your dad."

Jack nodded, a tear finally slipping free and trickling down his cheek. "I once made a vow to her that we'd be together until we died," he whispered brokenly. "I knew even then that it was impossible, but that didn't stop me wanting it so badly." Another tear broke free, leaving a damp trail across Jack's face.

Ianto shuffled a little closer, resisting the sudden temptation he had to reach out and wipe the tears away with the tips of his fingers. "I…" He stopped, not really having a clue what he could say, what he could do to help. He wondered if Jack had felt like this all the times he'd come to Ianto's aid over the last months. If he had, he'd covered well; he always seemed to know what to say.

"Tell me about her," Ianto said suddenly, recalling the night before, how recounting the early days, the happy days, with Lisa had helped. "What she was like when you knew her, before? How did you meet?"

Jack's face lightened a little, a nostalgic smile curving his lips even if it didn't quite reach his eyes. "I was in London, back in the country on leave. A few weeks before Christmas, at the Astoria ballroom." A true light sparkled in his eyes and Ianto could tell he was immersed in the memory.

"I saw her across the floor. She was seventeen years old and she was _beautiful_. I loved her practically at first sight." He sighed, his focus coming back to Ianto. "But it was wartime. Nothing lasted. Promises were broken, including mine."

"But you found her again," Ianto prompted.

Jack nodded. "Just as soon as enough time had passed that it wouldn't seem suspicious. And even though I abandoned her, she didn't bear me – or my father, as she thought – any ill will. She just…" He blew out a breath. "She shouldn't have had to die like that. Not Estelle."

Ianto nodded, thinking sadly of the sweet woman he'd met that afternoon. "No one should."

"No. I knew they could be vicious, I've seen it before, but this…"

Ianto blinked. While Jack had been able to tell them a lot about these creatures earlier, he hadn't imagined – wouldn't have wished to imagine – that it was through past experience with them. "You've seen it before?" he asked before he could help himself.

Jack nodded. "A long time ago. A _very_ long time ago." He sighed. "I was on a troop train in Lahore, in charge of a unit of fifteen men. We were all dog tired, but the men were having a good time anyway. I think that was what really set them off…"

"What happened?"

"We went into a tunnel." Jack shook his head. "There was a fluttering noise in the dark; I just thought a bird had got in through a window or something. And then we came _out_ of the tunnel."

Ianto swallowed hard; this didn't sound like it was going anywhere good.

"All of my men were dead. Petals in their mouths, like Mark Goodson, suffocated."

"Why? What had they done that…?"

"A couple of them had been out and got drunk a few days previously. Got behind the wheel of a truck to drive back to the village, ran over a kid."

His sudden stare burned right into Ianto. "The child was a Chosen One. I told you today, they protect their own. At any cost."


	55. Chapter 55 of 64

It was still early – barely light outside – when Gwen clattered into the Hub the next morning. Ianto leant down where he was preparing the day's batch of coffee beans. "Morning, Gwen. Coffee will still be a while, sorry."

She waved him off. "That's fine. Is Jack around?"

Ianto nodded. "Yeah he's just…" He looked over and Jack _wasn't_ in fact in his office, where he had been just minutes before. "Well, he _was_ in his office. He's around somewhere."

"What is it, Gwen?" Jack asked, his voice coming from close behind Ianto. Ianto twisted the top half of his body around to see and his arm nearly collided with Jack's chest. He wondered how Jack had managed to sneak up so close without him even noticing.

"Nothing, really," Gwen said uncertainly. "I just, I didn't really sleep. Kept feeling like there was something watching me, kept imagining I could see things from the corner of my eye. I don't know if it's because there _was_ something or if my mind was just playing tricks on me after yesterday."

Ianto nodded sympathetically. He'd shut his flat up tight when he had finally made it home the night before, and even then he hadn't felt quite safe. He'd returned to the Hub in the dim light of early dawn, not feeling truly secure until he'd stepped through the door.

"We have to do _something_, Jack," Gwen said fiercely. "I don't like not feeling safe in my own home." She waved her hands in the air. "What was it you said yesterday, we need to find the Chosen One? What is a Chosen One anyway? Why do they want them? How many of them are there?"

Ianto looked at Jack. Some of those were very good questions – ones they would need to know the answers to if the Chosen One or Ones were the key to getting through this encounter with the 'fairies'.

Jack looked at the floor and sighed.

"Jack?" Gwen prompted.

He looked up at them. "All these so-called fairies? They were once children, Chosen Ones, from all across time, across millennia. Part of the lost lands."

Ianto frowned. "Lost lands?"

"The lands that belonged to them," Jack clarified.

"So, why are they here?" Gwen asked. "What do they want?"

Jack fixed them both with a look. "They want what they believe is theirs. The next Chosen One."

Ianto sighed quietly; he had suspected as much. He heard Gwen take a sharp breath in.

"You mean they want to just _take_ someone's _child_?" she asked, voice just on the edge of shrill.

"Yes," Jack answered bluntly. "But the child has to want to go."

"We have to stop them, Jack," Gwen said just as bluntly. "We need to find that kid and stop them."

Jack cocked his head. "I agree. But that might be easier said than done."

Given that they didn't really know what they were looking for, Ianto didn't think it was all that surprising that, even with all five of them working on it, they were no closer to figuring out who the current Chosen One was by the middle of that afternoon.

They were gathered around the conference room table again, papers scattered over the table that had been dug out of the computer system and the archives, Tosh with her laptop out in front of her as she ran every kind of scan and database mining she could come up with.

He was ploughing through a particularly boring set of reports when Tosh's voice drew him out. "Ianto? What was the weather forecast for today?"

He thought for a second. "Dry and sunny all day, if I remember correctly."

"Then something is definitely happening again," Tosh said tensely.

The others all got to their feet and they all crowded around Tosh's laptop. "I don't know what's going on, it's just going crazy," she muttered as she triangulated the position.

A few seconds later, the computer had zeroed in on the disturbance, and Tosh could pull up an address.

"It's a school," she said. Ianto glanced down at the computer clock and noted silently that it made sense. "The Coed Y Garreg Primary School. I still don't know…"

"It doesn't matter," Jack cut her off. "That's right across town and we need to get there, now. Before anyone else gets hurt."

They burst into action, leaving Ianto gathering papers from the table back into piles as the rush of movement scattered them even further than they had been before.

"Can you keep an eye out for any more anomalies?" Jack called, turning around to face Ianto on his way down to the garage exit.

Ianto nodded. "Of course."

And Jack was gone after the others.

He continued to re-sort the information they had been scouring all day, using Tosh's abandoned laptop to watch out for any new disturbances, as promised. He had folded the laptop closed and was about to grab it and head down into the rest of the Hub when Jack's voice sounded in his ear.

"_We have a possible name for the kid. Jasmine Pierce. The school sent the kids home after the incident earlier, so…_"

Ianto flipped the laptop back open. "Do you need a home address?" he interrupted.

"_No, it's okay, Tosh got it. We're heading over there now. Not sure yet what we'll do once we get there, but hopefully we can sort something out."_

Ianto nodded, looking up the address anyway. "Okay."

He narrowed the scan region down to the immediate neighbourhood, suspecting that if anything further was going to happen it would be wherever the child was.

He wasn't expecting to be right.

The SUV tracker showed it to be still a couple of minutes out when another disturbance - similar to that at the school - suddenly appeared at the address listed on file for Jasmine Pierce.

"Jack," he said, tapping on his comm. "You might want to get to that address quickly. Something is happening, and it doesn't look good."


	56. Chapter 56 of 64

Ianto had cleared all of the papers back down to the archives – leaving them in the correct places to be properly filed when he reached that section – and was waiting agitatedly for the others to return.

The disturbance had cleared shortly after they had arrived at the house, but other than a terse notice over the comm. from Owen that it was over and they were returning, he had no idea what was going on, or what had happened.

It was apparently over, but what did that mean? Had they 'won'? 'Lost'? Or – as was usually the case, and what he suspected was probably true here too – something in between?

When the door from the garage finally swung open, and the team traipsed in. The dark looks on their faces told him things definitely hadn't gone as well as they might have optimistically hoped for.

Tosh, Owen and Gwen systematically dropped equipment in the proper locations on their way through the Hub, not even stopping to remove their jackets before they were heading for the cog door.

Ianto scurried up to stand next to the door before they reached it, looking questioningly at them.

Gwen paused next to him for just a moment, long enough to hiss, "He just let her _go_," before continuing through the door after Tosh and Owen.

As the door rolled closed behind them, Ianto turned around. Jack was standing in the middle of the Hub, barely halfway from the garage to the office area. His shoulders were slumped and even at a distance, and with Jack's head low, Ianto could see how utterly dejected he was.

He strode swiftly across the Hub to stand in front of him. "Jack?"

Jack raised his head and looked at him. "You may as well leave too; I know you must want to. I know the others will have told you what I did."

Ianto stood his ground. "I suspect what they told me isn't anywhere near the full story."

"Perhaps not, but it doesn't change the end result, doesn't change what I did." Jack's eyes slid away to stare into space.

Ianto sighed, shifting around behind Jack and helping him off with his coat. He wasn't sure Jack even noticed. He slung it over his arm and stepped directly into Jack's line of sight.

"What actually happened out there, Jack?" he asked directly.

"I let her go," Jack said softly. "Let them take her."

"No." Ianto fixed Jack with a stern look. "The whole story. I don't believe you did that without a reason."

Jack scrubbed a hand across his face. "She wanted to go," he muttered painfully. "She really wanted to go, and not even the thought of her mother was enough to make her want to stay."

Ianto couldn't imagine what it must feel like when going away with the fairies seemed like a more attractive option than staying with your family. However self-destructive he had become in his teens, if he'd had one or both of his parents still there and able to care for him, loving him… everything would have been different. What had Jasmine's life been like that she didn't feel that?

"That's still not the whole story, though, is it?" he prompted.

Jack shook his head slowly. "No. They said – no, they _promised_ they'd destroy the world for her if we didn't let her go with them." His expression was bleak as he finally met Ianto's eyes properly again. "You've seen what they can do. I have no doubts that if they wanted to do it, they could."

"So, it was Jasmine or the whole world?" Ianto said, waiting for Jack's nod of confirmation. "Doesn't really sound like much of a choice."

"I wish there had been another option, I really do," Jack said, clearly frustrated. "I hate that I had to do what I did, but what else could I do?"

Ianto stepped forward, resting his free hand on Jack's shoulder. "You did what you had to do. The others will see that, eventually."

Jack shook his head, his lips pressed hard together. "I hope so, Ianto, I really do."


	57. Chapter 57 of 64

"Ianto!" Owen yelled up from the autopsy bay. "Tell Jack that dead Weevil probably died in some kind of fight, and that my full report will be done tomorrow."

"I should have updated numbers on the prediction work by tomorrow afternoon too," Tosh added as he walked past her desk on the way to Jack's office.

Ianto sighed to himself. Five days so far, and it didn't seem like the others were going to thaw in respect to Jack any time soon. The only time they would even speak to him was if Ianto wasn't within yelling distance. He was starting to get tired of acting as a go-between.

Jack found him later that afternoon, down in the cells as he watched the bright fluffy creatures they had captured a week before devour the food he had just put into the two cells housing them.

He felt Jack coming up behind him before the older man said anything.

"Four more died this morning," he observed, a little sadly. The creatures could have caused havoc had they been allowed to roam free, but he hated to watch their population diminishing so quickly in captivity.

Jack sighed behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. "They do seem to have a short life-span. Which is probably why they breed so quickly."

Ianto nodded. "Probably." He dragged his eyes away from where two of the smallest creatures were having a tug of war with a tough piece of foliage and turned to face Jack. "How are you?"

"Me? I'm fine," Jack said, a little too brightly. Ianto raised his eyebrows. "Really, I am. Yes, it's frustrating that you're the only one on my team who can bear even to speak to me, but…" He sighed deeply. "Okay, maybe I'm not _fine_, but I'm coping."

He broke Ianto's gaze, his eyes shifting to watch the colourful bundles of fluff as they scampered about their cells behind him. "What do they think of me that they could believe I actually wanted to do it? I thought I…"

"I don't think they believe that, not really," Ianto assured him, not for the first time. "It's just… this is why you're the boss; you can make the tough calls when you need to. Even though it was the only choice, the only way to save the planet, I don't know if any of us would have had the strength to make that call. They'll realise that, just give them time."

He felt a little hypocritical, preaching patience to Jack when he was so rapidly losing patience with his colleagues himself, but he knew it was what Jack needed to hear. He just hoped he was right. He hated to see Jack beating himself up like this when it really hadn't been his fault. "You're a good man, Jack, and they know that. They just need some time to remember it."

"Ianto," Gwen said, catching his arm as he passed her. "Could you tell Jack that…?"

"No," he snapped, interrupting her. "I can't. If you want to tell Jack something, tell him yourself. This has been going on long enough. I'm sick of being a go-between because you lot all persist in blaming Jack for something that wasn't his fault."

"You weren't there, Ianto; you didn't see for yourself what…"

"Maybe I didn't," Ianto said hotly, interrupting Gwen again. "But even so, I think I have a handle on the situation. The two options were save the world or stop them from taking Jasmine – who by all accounts wanted to go. What else could he have done?" He looked around, pausing on each of the team. "He chose to save the world, the human race, and correct me if I'm wrong but I thought that was what we were _here_ for."

"But he could have…" Owen started.

Ianto looked at him. "He could have what? You've had nearly a week and a half to think about this now, tell me what other options he could have used."

"Well, he could have… uhh…"

Gwen, Owen and Tosh exchanged increasingly perplexed looks.

"Exactly," said Ianto, a little more gently, seeing realisation finally dawn on his colleagues._hereh_


	58. Chapter 58 of 64

Jack leant back against the wall, his shoulder just brushing Ianto's where he sat next to him.

"I don't think she's got long left now," he murmured.

Ianto shook his head. "Even with the absolute nightmare they gave us catching them, I'm going to miss them."

Jack bobbed his head. He knew exactly what Ianto meant. It had been nice, these past two weeks, to be able to come down to the cells occasionally and just watch the little furry creatures play. It made a difference to the usual Weevils and other not-so-fun aliens they kept down there. "Maybe we should have allowed some controlled breeding," he mused idly.

Ianto shifted against him. "Maybe," he agreed. "It's too late now."

They both watched the single remaining creature as she slumped on her belly next to the water dish, the rhythmic rise and fall of her back the only indication they had that she was still alive. Her last companion – another female who had been very young when they brought them in – had passed away that afternoon.

Ianto had declared that he couldn't leave the last one to die alone, and when the others had gone home a short while ago, Jack had come down to join him.

There wasn't much conversation for the next while as they sat in tense silence, knowing that any minute the last of their furry little friends would take her last breath.

Jack knew almost the moment that it happened; when a hand gripped his leg and squeezed, he knew that Ianto had noticed too. He also knew that Ianto probably wasn't aware of quite what he'd done, but couldn't make himself point it out.

He felt oddly bereft when Ianto shifted away, standing up. "I should probably…" He gestured towards the cell.

Jack nodded, shaking himself internally and clambering to his own feet. "Yeah."

He looked again at the tiny creature, looking even smaller now in death than she had in life. "We never even gave them a name," he realised, sighing a little. The last team to encounter them hadn't given them a name either, and they weren't anything Jack had encountered before he came to Earth so he didn't know their real name.

"Well, actually…" Ianto started. He paused, his mouth still open. "Never mind."

"No," Jack pushed a little, curious. "What is it?" Although the lights in the cells were always dim, Jack would have sworn that Ianto's cheeks pinkened a little.

"I've been calling them..." Ianto bit his lip and looked away. "Fuzzy Wuzzies." The last two words were so quiet as to be barely audible.

"Did you say 'Fuzzy Wuzzy'?" Jack asked, frowning slightly as he requested the clarification.

Ianto turned back to look at him, his cheeks flaming brightly. "Yes, I've been calling them Fuzzy Wuzzies. And I know it's a bit silly, and it's not exactly the most _scientific_ name for them, but…"

"I like it," Jack interrupted, contemplating for a second as he realised that he wasn't actually lying. "It has a bit of a ring to it." He smiled slightly as Ianto blinked at him; he wasn't sure if it was in confusion or just startlement. "When you get around to permanently filing the reports on the whole incident, file the creatures under 'Fuzzy Wuzzy'."

Ianto just stared at him for a long moment. "You're serious," he said slowly a second later.

Jack nodded, wondering why Ianto would even doubt it. "Of course I am."

Ianto shook his head and muttered something under his breath. Jack was quite certain he caught the words 'crazy' and 'why' being used more than once.

"Right," Ianto said, his voice once more loud enough for Jack to hear. "I'm going to deal with…" He gestured once more towards the cell beside them. "And then, if you don't need anything else, I might head home."

Ianto began to move to do just that, and Jack suddenly remembered the other reason he'd had to come down and find Ianto earlier, other than just to keep him company while he witnessed the death of the final 'Fuzzy Wuzzy'.

"Actually," he started, and Ianto froze. "When you're done, I might need a bit of a hand in the storage cupboard, sorting some stuff out."

Ianto looked at him suspiciously. "What sort of stuff? And why does it need sorting?"

Jack smiled. "Nothing that warrants you looking at me like that. Camping stuff. Tomorrow morning, we're all heading out on a little trip. Just for a couple of days. Yes, you included," he added, seeing Ianto's mouth opening and guessing the question he had been about to ask.

"There are odd things happening out in the Beacons, and after the last few weeks, I think a little team bonding trip is just what we need."


	59. Chapter 59 of 64

"Can you finish loading the rest of this, Ianto? I'm going to go up and see if the others have all arrived yet. Hopefully prepared," Jack said as they pushed the last tent into the bottom of the storage compartment in the back of the SUV.

Ianto frowned, a sudden suspicion dawning. "You _did_ tell them about this little trip you've planned, right?"

Jack stood up and faced him, an expression on his face that was trying too hard to be innocent. "Of course I did!" he protested.

Ianto straightened, dusting his hands off on his jeans. "All of it?"

Jack opened and closed his mouth a few times and shifted from foot too foot. Ianto raised his eyebrows questioningly at him. "Well, I told them we were heading out of Cardiff for a possible case and some team building. I… may have skipped over the 'camping' element of it," he admitted.

Ianto shook his head at Jack, imagining the reactions from the rest of the team when they discovered the truth. Gwen and Tosh, while they might be temporarily annoyed at Jack for keeping it from them, probably wouldn't protest _too_ much at the overnight stay.

Owen… Ianto recalled a conversation he'd had with the medic some months ago that had somehow turned to the topic of camping. He also clearly remembered that Owen had come down firmly _not_ on the side of the 'outdoors experience'. He was almost the stereotypical city kid, and two days – or more – out in the countryside just didn't sound like Owen's cup of tea.

"It's a good thing you can't die," Ianto said conversationally, picking up a case of equipment and loading it into the SUV. Almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he winced internally at how crass and insensitive they had sounded out loud.

Jack frowned. "Why's that?"

Ianto closed his eyes for a second in relief that his slightly thoughtless words hadn't seemed to upset Jack and drew his head back out of the SUV's boot.

He repressed an ironic grin as he stared right at Jack, who looked honestly clueless about the answer to his question. "When Owen finds out what you have planned, there's a very good chance he's going to kill you."

Several hours later, after over an hour on the road, Ianto was beginning to wonder if telling Owen what was going on before they left the Hub might not have been a good idea. As soon as the word 'camping' had been mentioned, Owen would no doubt have refused to join them. While that, theoretically, was not a good thing for the 'team building' objective of this trip, practically was a whole other story.

Owen had started complaining almost the moment they had hit anything that could even vaguely be called countryside. And, while Ianto wasn't _too_ uncomfortable squeezed in the back with the girls, he couldn't help but think of all the extra space they might have had for the journey with one less person.

"And what _is_ that smell?" Owen complained at the end of his latest rant about the many shortcomings of the countryside and rural life.

Ianto sniffed, not smelling anything out of the ordinary. It didn't even smell like there were any farmers spreading manure in the area, so he wasn't sure what Owen was complaining about.

"I think you'll find that's _grass_, Owen," Gwen said from the other side of the car.

"Well, I don't like it," Owen declared.

Ianto rested his head against the window. "At the risk of sounding like an annoying child, are we nearly there yet?"

"Shouldn't be too much longer, I don't think. Maybe twenty minutes at the very most," Jack said, his eyes meeting Ianto's briefly in the rear-view mirror. "Although we might just pause here for a few. Stretch our legs. Check our bearings."

Ianto peered around the side of the front seat to see out of the front window. Up above was a lonely looking snack van, the paintwork fading a little, with a picnic table in front of it that, from this distance, he couldn't see clearly but suspected was also on the tired side.

As they pulled up beside it and climbed out, Ianto noted absently that he'd been right. Stretching out, his muscles protesting slightly after the long trip, he glanced at his watch. Almost lunchtime, and he didn't remember there being an awful lot of food in the provisions Jack had sorted out overnight for them to pack that morning.

"Anyone want anything?" he asked, gesturing towards the van.

"Sure, grab me a burger?" Owen said as he looked around at the rolling green hills around them with distaste.

"Yeah, same, please," Gwen added, rolling the kinks out of her shoulders.

"Jack? Tosh?"

"Yeah, that sounds fine, thanks, Ianto," Jack called as he pulled out a paper map of the area, apparently not quite trusting the GPS system installed in the SUV.

Tosh shook her head. "No, thanks. I'm fine, really."

"Alright."

Double-checking his back pocket for his wallet, Ianto crossed the road and a patch of scrubby grass to the snack van. After checking out the state of the relish, he ordered four plain burgers and handed over the cash.

By the time he returned, the others had the map spread across the bonnet of the SUV and Jack was trying to point something out on it.

"Here." He passed the first burger to Owen. "Careful, it's hot."

"Thanks." Owen started to open up the burger and continued on with a rant he had evidently started before Ianto had returned from the van. "I'm just saying, I don't reckon any aliens are gonna bother hanging around out here. I wouldn't be surprised if this is all just some sort of suicide pact or something. I know I'd bloody top myself if I had to spend too long out in this."

Ianto paused in the middle of unwrapping his burger. "You say the nicest things, Owen." He glanced over at Tosh who was fiddling with her PDA while the rest of them started to tuck into their burgers. "Are you absolutely sure you don't want anything, Tosh?"

"Absolutely," she repeated back emphatically. "A friend of mine caught Hepatitis from a burger from one of those places."

Four partially unwrapped burgers hit the SUV bonnet almost simultaneously.

Jack eyed his suspiciously and sighed. "Anyway, we may as well start with the most recent victim." He flipped open a notebook. "An Ellie Johnson. Last heard from about a week ago, and the mobile phone network can place her about…" He pointed to a spot on the map. "There. Just a few more minutes down this road."

He took a step to the side, looking directly down the road ahead. "Looks like as good a place to set up camp as any other."

Ianto started to clear the mostly uneaten burgers from the bonnet, waiting for the entirety of Jack's words to hit the rest of the team.

"Hang on," said Owen a moment later, pointing a finger at Jack. "Did you just say _camp_?"


	60. Chapter 60 of 64

"I still don't see why we have to _camp_," Owen grumbled loudly, looking around at the assortment of tent parts he had taken out of the bag but was yet to do anything else with. "What's wrong with finding a _hotel_ or something?"

Ianto paused in knocking a peg holding a guy rope for one of the other two tents into the ground to look round at Owen. Yes, giving Owen a tent to himself had definitely been the right decision; he was no doubt going to complain all night.

"Something is happening to these people out here, and you want to go stay in some unknown hotel with goodness knows who?" Jack asked, coming round from the other side of the tent.

Owen glared back. "Yes, because we're so safe sleeping _outside_."

Jack sighed audibly. "No other race in the universe goes camping. Celebrate your own uniqueness!" He stalked off back to the SUV to pick up more supplies.

Owen kicked the pile of tent parts. "This isn't going to assemble into anything resembling a proper habitation." He glared at Ianto. "Are you sure there aren't bits missing?"

Ianto stood up, tugging gently on the guy rope he had just secured to check the tension. "Yes, Owen, I'm sure. Jack and I checked that all three tents were complete last night."

Owen picked up a pole and looked at it in bewilderment. "What am I supposed to do with this?"

Before Ianto could get through his astonishment that Owen really _hadn't_ ever been camping before and reply, Tosh had rounded the corner of the tent she and Gwen would be sharing.

"Need a hand getting it up, Owen?" she asked cheekily from just behind Ianto.

Owen looked at her over Ianto's shoulder, grinning a little for the first time since they'd left Cardiff. "Thanks for the offer, Tosh, but I'm fine."

He continued to look with bewilderment at the pile of parts on the ground.

Ianto looked up as Jack returned, a bag under his arm, and an idea hit him that might at least get them past this one problem. "How about this, Owen; Jack and I will get your tent set up while you help the girls get the rest of the stuff from the SUV?"

He raised an eyebrow at Jack, silently asking for his approval of the plan and getting a minute nod in return.

Owen sighed. "Fine, fine. Sounds great to me. I'm still convinced there are bits missing."

With Owen out of the way gathering together all the stuff back at the SUV with Gwen and Tosh, it didn't take Jack and Ianto long to get the tent erected and secured. The others returned, arms loaded full of all their stuff, just as they were sorting out the last guy rope, Ianto holding it taut while Jack knelt at his feet, knocking in the peg.

"Why do you want to know all this pointless stuff anyway?" Owen was exclaiming as they came back into earshot.

"Just getting to know you better," Gwen replied. "I thought that was part of the reason for this trip."

"Well, yeah, but I don't see how that translates into stupid juvenile questions."

Jack stood up and exchanged a look with Ianto before turning to the squabbling trio as they neared. "What's the problem here?"

"Gwen is pretending to be an eight year-old," Owen said dryly.

"Gwen?"

Gwen shrugged. "All I did was ask a few 'getting to know you' questions. Just a bit of fun."

"What sort of questions?" Ianto asked, regretting it almost immediately.

"Oh, you know… what was the name of your first girl - or boy - friend?"

Gwen looked at him meaningfully, and it took Ianto a few seconds to realise that she was actually waiting for an answer. He had to think for a few seconds before her face appeared in his mind, a little indistinct now that over a decade had passed since he'd even seen her. "Meredith Davies," he said quietly. "We were both thirteen, and it lasted all of about three weeks, which I vaguely remember seeming like forever at the time."

Gwen smiled at him. "At thirteen three weeks _was_ forever." Her gaze shifted sideways. "Jack?"

Ianto felt his own eyes slide to look at Jack out of the corner of his eye. He would be, quite frankly, amazed if Jack remembered, given the trouble he'd had pulling up the name and face after just twelve years. And even if he did remember, he'd be surprised if Jack revealed it, knowing how secretive he generally was about his past.

"Are those my only options?" Jack asked frankly.

"Are what your only options?" Gwen asked, frowning slightly.

"Girl or boy?" Jack replied, cocking his head and grinning widely.

Gwen looked like she didn't quite know whether to believe him or not, and Ianto couldn't completely blame her. The little he _did_ know about Jack's childhood… 'neither' seemed like a perfectly possible choice.

"Anyway," Jack said emphatically, taking charge again. "Owen, Gwen, stop squabbling and go see if you can find us some firewood. Tosh, Ianto and I will get everything set up here."

Ianto was shaking out a sleeping bag to toss into a tent when there was a blood-curdling shriek from the wooded area nearby.

Dropping it, he exchanged a worried look with Jack and Tosh, and all three of them spoke simultaneously.

"Gwen and Owen!"


	61. Chapter 61 of 64

Ianto took a roll of crime scene tape – regularly appropriated from the Cardiff police force – from the collection of items he and Tosh had just retrieved from their camp and started stringing it in a wide circle around the body, wrapping it around trees here and there to secure it as he went.

He was glad to leave the job of taking Owen his kit to Tosh – he didn't want to get any closer to the corpse than he absolutely had to. He'd seen far too many of them, but it never really got any easier – even when they no longer actually resembled a human body, like this one.

"Okay, this is definitely not our missing young woman - what was her name, Ellie? - for a start," Owen said after a few minutes of examination.

"No?" Jack queried.

Owen shook his head. "This is a male. Maybe late 40s, early 50s at a guess. And this is a dump. There's no blood, no sign of a struggle; he wasn't killed here."

"If you're going to take the trouble to come out here to dump a body, why just leave it, why not bury it?" Gwen asked from where she was leaning against a tree several meters from the body. Ianto suspected she didn't want to get any closer to it than he did.

"Maybe you disturbed them," Tosh said, looking around them at the trees surrounding them. "You said you heard a noise. You could have disturbed them in the act, and they ran away."

Ianto took another glance at the body, noting with a little disgust the swarm of maggots that all but covered it, the tiny scraps of flesh left between the bones being decimated quickly. Someone who could – would – do this to a body didn't seem like the same sort of person who would dump a body somewhere with even the small chance of discovery that there was here.

"Maybe it's a warning, a threat to get off their territory or else face the consequences," he posited, hoping he was wrong.

Gwen twisted to look at him, a worried expression on her face.

"So," Jack said, with the clear air of someone changing the subject. "Cause of death, Owen?"

Owen sighed. "No idea. It's impossible for me to tell, the body's been completely stripped, and I'm no anthropologist. Could have been anything."

Tosh looked around again. "The Weevils wouldn't be out this far, would they?"

Ianto considered how long they had been driving for and started to shake his head. Jack did the same. "Unlikely. And they don't strip their victims like this."

"So what could have…?" Tosh trailed off as the sound of a car engine starting up nearby reached them. "What's…?"

"Is that ours?" Gwen asked sharply, pushing off the tree.

Ianto turned and ran back in the direction of camp, hearing Jack's voice calling, "Yeah!" behind him.

He reached the campsite just in time to see the SUV being driven across the ropes supporting the third tent. He took chase, noticing the others doing the same, but knowing all the time that, realistically, they had no chance of catching the car.

Within almost seconds, the SUV had picked up speed and was hurtling into the distance. "Dammit," Ianto muttered to himself. He heard Jack yell out in frustration as he too stopped trying to catch the car.

"Okay, who left the keys in the ignition?" Jack shouted as they turned as one back towards the flattened tents.

Ianto held up his hands – he knew it wasn't him. Owen, Tosh and Gwen exchanged looks, with both of the girls eventually fixing on Owen.

"Okay!" he shouted after a minute. "It was me, okay? I'm sorry!"

Jack shook his head and started picking up the equipment that had been scattered by the SUV's trip through the middle of their camp.

Ianto dug a PDA out of his back pocket while the others – for once – did the picking up. Hoping that the SUV tracker hadn't been deactivated, he wandered around the site, trying to find the strongest signal so he could log in to the Torchwood servers and access the tracker program.

There. He could hear the rest of the team carrying on the argument about whose fault it was that the SUV had been taken as his login processed. A moment later and a tiny diagram appeared at the top of the screen, his position and that of the SUV both clearly marked on it.

He only caught the end of Jack's question, just hearing the words 'tracking signal'.

"Got it," he called, waving the PDA. "I took the liberty of doing that while you were bickering." He grinned at them. "It is currently…" He looked down at the bottom window on the screen, which was giving a rolling numerical update on the status of the SUV. "… 3.4 miles from here."

"Gunning at ninety, no doubt," Owen sighed, tossing a couple of pegs on the ground. "You steal a piece of equipment like that, you drive straight on till morning."

Ianto looked again at the PDA screen. "Actually… it's been stationary for… nearly four minutes now." He looked back up, raising an eyebrow at Owen. "I'd even go so far as to say it was _parked_."

Gwen turned around, dug in a bag for a moment and pulled out the map they had been consulting earlier. "So if we're here," she started, pointing a finger at the map and trailing it across. "There _is_ a small village in that area. And then nothing for miles."

Ianto shoved the PDA back into his pocket. He had a feeling he knew where this conversation was going.

"This sounds worryingly like a trap," Toshiko said, nevertheless digging out a few pieces of simple equipment that she could fit into her pockets.

"I was just thinking the same thing," Jack replied, twisting to face them all. He had a reckless smile on his face, and Ianto wondered if he was the only one on the team that knew somehow that he would follow that smile into anything. "Anyone up for a walk?"


	62. Chapter 62 of 64

Ianto clutched his head with one hand as he drifted back into consciousness. He wasn't sure what had happened. The last he remembered, he and Tosh had been looking for a way into a large shed-like building where they suspected the SUV had been parked while the others had investigated a village just down the road. And then… nothing.

He looked around, only realising a moment or two later how dark it was. There were no windows; the only light came from some sort of shaft high on one wall, and there was an unpleasant, dank smell. He could only guess at 'underground'.

It was several more minutes before his brain had cleared and his eyes acclimatised enough to the dim light for him to realise he wasn't alone. Tosh. She had yet to regain consciousness and cautiously - worriedly - he shuffled over to her, not quite trusting his legs to stand, and checked.

She still had a pulse, a strong and steady pulse. Although it wasn't much, it was something, and he sighed a little with relief. This definitely wasn't what he had signed up for when he had agreed to come on this trip.

When he felt a little steadier, he crawled to his feet and made a cursory examination of the room, feeling his way around carefully in the dark. His foot knocked into something that scuffled across the floor a little. Crouching down, he picked it up and examined it in the patch of light over by the shaft to the outside world.

It was… Well, it looked like a meat hook. He kept a hold of it; it might prove useful somehow, especially since his gun was no longer tucked into his waistband.

Tosh made a slight noise, shifting on the floor. Finding an empty crate – he wasn't sure if he wanted to know what it had once been filled with – he sat down, watching and waiting as Tosh roused.

She groaned softly as she sat up, rubbing her neck. "What…?" she murmured.

Ianto shook his head. "I don't know. I think I might be off camping for life, though." He sighed, and tried to smile wryly. "I used to love camping."

He stood up as Tosh did, ready to catch her if her legs were – like his had been – a little wobbly at first. She seemed steady enough, patting around her own body. "They took all my stuff."

He nodded. "Yeah, mine too. Including the gun." Tosh reached down to her ankle, and from the look on her face he guessed that she'd discovered they'd taken hers too.

She checked her other ankle, and looked triumphant, pulling out a small torch. "Not quite everything."

She flashed the torch around the room; there was detritus scattered around most of the walls, but nothing that particularly looked useful. She flashed it across the door, across the hatch providing them with what little natural light they had.

"As far as I can work out – from the air quality especially – we're pretty far underground," Ianto said. "I don't even know how far we are from where we were taken, which doesn't look good for our chances of rescue."

Tosh spun back to face him, looking determined. "We're not going to need rescuing. Not us. We can get out of this, just you watch."

The torch beam swung across a light fitting, a bulb still slotted in, and Ianto started fiddling with it as Tosh continued her exploration with the torch.

She leaned into what was now evidently some sort of chute, looking up towards the daylight. She sighed and shook her head – it definitely didn't look like a viable escape route to Ianto.

When she drew back, she lifted her hand into the light, wriggling her fingers in disgust. The light shone on them and Ianto bit back a gasp. The red smeared across them was unmistakeably blood. "This is not good," she said quietly, holding her hand up.

"No." Ianto resolutely did not think of where the blood could have come from, setting his concentration to trying to fix the light.

Tosh's voice broke through a few minutes later. "Huh. That's odd."

"What is it?" He abandoned the light fixture – there was no way he was going to get it working, not without any tools – and crossed the room to join her.

"It's a shoe," Tosh replied, holding it out to him and flashing the torch across the floor where she'd found it.

Another shoe came into view. The another, and another. Ianto quickly lost count. "Oh God…"

Tosh dropped the shoe between them, gripping his shirtsleeve. "How many people have been kept down here?" she wondered aloud. Ianto really didn't want to think about that – not if all that was left of them was their shoes.

At the end of the collection of shoes - when it reached the wall - there was what looked to Ianto like a full height fridge. Tosh let go of his arm and picked her way through the scattered shoes, opening the door.

She gasped, stepping back. "What is it, Tosh?" Ianto asked with trepidation.

She took another step back. "You don't want to see."

He carefully stepped forwards to stand beside her, looking into the still open fridge a metre in front of him.

He swallowed hard, clamping down on the nausea.

"That's why the body was stripped right back like that; why there was nothing left," Tosh choked out. "They needed to eat. We're… we're food."

Ianto pushed the fridge door closed and looked around worriedly at the heavy door trapping them in. "But for what?"

When he found the answer to his question, barely half an hour later, he wished he had never even asked.


	63. Chapter 63 of 64

Jack strode away from the house into the darkened village streets, a determined look on his face. What these people were doing… It might not be an alien threat, might not _technically_ come under Torchwood's purview, but they definitely needed to be stopped.

Especially when they had his team, his friends. No one hurt the people he cared about and got away with it.

He walked around the village for a minute, locating what he thought was the right building. There weren't any windows on the side he had approached on, so he couldn't be sure, but the lack of windows did at least give him the element of surprise.

He backtracked through the village a little, looking for anything that could be useful to help him get in. The SUV would be ideal, really, but he knew he didn't have the time to go find it.

He found what he needed in an open fronted shed at the end of a row of houses. It was perfect. He double-checked he had his Webely in its holster, and took another quick look around. There was a shotgun on the shed wall, amazingly still fully loaded; he could only suppose that so far out in the country they weren't expecting any visitors so were a little slacker with their security.

Which probably didn't help things when half of your village decided that it was a good idea to eat the other half.

There was a length of rope looped around a nail too – given that he hadn't picked up the multiple sets of cuffs he imagined were about to be necessary, that could come in handy.

He grabbed the shotgun and the rope, climbed in, and turned the key.

The tractor was heavy and the engine rumbled deeply beneath him; he was quite convinced the ground around him would be shaking under the weight and the vibrations.

When he burst through the wall and got a glimpse of what was going on behind it, instinct took over. He fired shot after shot almost without pause, conscious thought subsumed beneath the need to protect his team, hurt those who had tried to harm them.

He didn't come back to himself for several minutes, when he found himself with a burly man in his grip, his Webley under the man's chin.

There was a cry of, "No!" from behind him; he wasn't aware enough to identify if it had come from Gwen or Tosh, although it had definitely been feminine. He pulled back, stunned with himself that he had been moments away from blowing the guy's brains out.

No, as angry as he was - and glancing around and seeing the state his team were in, especially Ianto, fuelled his rage even further - death wasn't the answer.

Shoving the man down to the floor, he tugged the one set of cuffs he _did_ have from his back pocket, kicking the guy over to his front and cuffing his wrists behind him.

Face to the floor, the heavyset man didn't move as Jack moved away, swinging the length of rope from the seat of the tractor and, with some help from Owen, trussed the rest of the injured villagers up in the middle of the room.

When they were all secured, he properly looked around. Although several areas of the space were hidden by plastic sheeting, what he _could_ see turned his stomach.

"Owen," he said, hating to ask but knowing someone needed to. "Could you keep an eye on this lot while the rest of us go locate the SUV?"

Tosh and Ianto especially he wanted to get out of there. Both of them were regarding the villagers with fear and disgust.

Their process through the village was slow; Ianto was clearly badly beaten and possibly concussed, although he seemed to want to gloss over his injuries. Gwen too was beginning to wince at the wound to her abdomen.

Although the sun was just beginning to rise, there was no movement from any of the houses along the street. Jack tried a door, found it open. "Gwen, Ianto, see if you can find a phone - I'm sure there must be one - and call the police in. An ambulance too, probably - they _are_ all injured. Tosh, do you remember roughly where you thought the SUV was?"

Tosh nodded, although she didn't look entirely confident.

"Good. We'll be back here for you once we find it," he told Gwen and Ianto. "You both need to take things easy. And don't even think about protesting, because you both know it's true," he added when he saw Gwen open her mouth to speak.

Steadying each other, Gwen and Ianto dutifully went in search of a landline phone.

Jack looked over the wrecked campsite with dismay. With the villagers patched up and in police custody finally, all he wanted was to get his weary and battered team home and safe. Doped up on painkillers, Ianto and Gwen were already dozing in the SUV. Despite both Owen and the paramedics assuring him that Ianto wasn't seriously concussed, he was worried.

Roping Owen into helping, he threw everything into bags and tossed it all back into the back of the SUV. They could sort it out later – or tomorrow. Right now all that was important was getting back to Cardiff and making sure his team – his family – were going to be okay. Everything else could wait.


	64. Chapter 64 of 64

"And you're sure your boyfriend will definitely be home by now to look after you?" Jack asked concernedly as they pulled up outside Gwen's flat. He glanced at his watch as the engine idled. Dealing with the emergency services and driving back to Cardiff had taken longer than he had thought, and the afternoon was beginning to tick away.

"Yes, I'm sure," Gwen replied, her tone weary. "He said he'd be home half an hour ago when I called."

"Good." For once, as the case hadn't, in the end, involved any must-be-kept-confidential alien activity, Gwen would be able to talk about it to her partner, whose name Jack couldn't quite bring to mind at that moment. It was sure to hit the news in the next few days anyway, and – as it was the police, not Torchwood, who were officially dealing with the case – it would fit in with the 'special ops' cover he knew Gwen was using with him, on advice from the team.

"Unless the world decides to end tomorrow, take the day off. Let yourself heal a bit and I'll see you back at work on Monday."

Gwen nodded and climbed stiffly out of the car.

Waiting until she was safely inside the main door, Jack pointed the SUV towards Tosh's flat. Tosh had escaped the worse of the physical torments perpetrated at the hands of the villagers – mostly down to Ianto's actions, she had confessed to Jack earlier during the SUV retrieval – but the emotional torment and the impact of the things she had witnessed would stay with her.

Jack knew that Tosh didn't believe this would affect her any worse than the things she had seen before. Gwen may have been the only one to vocalise it, but the fact that the 'creatures' in question had been human this time, meant it would be different for all of them.

Owen – in some ways, the least affected of all of them, this once – had volunteered to stay with Tosh, to make sure she wasn't alone when the horrors of the last day and a half really hit her.

Jack had been surprised at the voluntary compassion. He knew that Owen had it in him, but he also knew the medic very rarely displayed it openly. But, moreover, he had been glad that Tosh would be looked after by someone who cared. Glad that neither of them would be alone in lonely flats after this doomed trip.

That just left Ianto. Despite the painkillers Owen had given him at the scene, whenever Jack glanced into the passenger seat – which he had done a lot, on the drive back to Cardiff from the Beacons – he could tell the younger man was still experiencing significant discomfort.

This really wasn't what he had been envisaging when he'd suggested the camping trip, although it was true that the experience did seem to have re-strengthened the bonds between the team. He would much rather have done that _without_ Gwen getting shot, Tosh and Ianto being kidnapped and Ianto… He would have done almost anything if it meant that Ianto wouldn't have been hurt like this.

"Ianto?" He turned the engine off and reached over to shake Ianto's shoulder very gently; he had dozed off again on the journey from Tosh's flat to his own.

Ianto's eyes blinked open, squinting a little in the early afternoon sunlight. "Huh?"

"We're here." Ianto reached down to undo his seatbelt, wincing as the movement pulled something. Jack resisted the urge just to do it for him, suspecting that Ianto's fierce independent streak would protest, despite the obvious pain.

Instead, he jumped down and rounded the front of the SUV, ready to give Ianto a hand to get down. Whatever Ianto's pride said, Jack knew that with the pain in his ribs he wouldn't be able to do that alone.

Getting up the stairs and into Ianto's flat took some time – Ianto's beaten and bruised muscles had locked up on the long car journey back, and moving them again was painful.

If Jack had had his way, he would have tucked Ianto into bed with another round of painkillers just as soon as they were through his front door, but Ianto refused.

"Not yet," he said, shaking his head slowly. "They make my head all woozy - even without the head injury - and I want to take a hot shower first."

Jack looked at Ianto swaying slightly as he gripped the back of the sofa, and worried about him slipping and falling in the shower. "Are you sure?"

Ianto nodded. "Yes, I'm definitely sure. Hot showers did a lot to help all the bruises and sore muscles I had after Canary Wharf." He gave a little choked laugh. "Especially when I was giving Lisa all the painkillers I was being prescribed."

Jack tried not to think too hard about the state Ianto must have been in those first few weeks; he just couldn't bear it, not when he had such a good basis for the mental image right in front of him. "Okay then, a hot shower it is," he nodded, concentrating firmly on the here and now.

Taking Ianto's arm again, they stumbled their way into Ianto's spacious bathroom. Ianto carefully lowered himself to sit on the closed toilet seat.

Jack looked around uncertainly. "Do you need… anything?"

Ianto shook his head once and then looked down at himself uncertainly. "Actually, I might need a hand getting my socks and shoes off." He grimaced as he moved an arm across his body experimentally. "And possibly my t-shirt. I think I can handle the jeans."

Jack nodded, helping Ianto shrug out of his shirt and telling his wayward body that this was _not_ an appropriate time. When Ianto's shoes and socks, then t-shirt, were removed, any errant thoughts were quashed; his torso was practically one big bruise, just blooming into a deep purple.

He tamped down the resurgent rage; the perpetrators were _being_ punished. He knew that between Tosh's technical know-how and Torchwood's influence, they could make sure that none of them ever walked free again. And if some dark parts of Jack's mind whispered that it wasn't enough? That was just something he would have to live with.

Jack started to turn to leave. "Are you sure there's nothing else you need?"

There was silence, and Jack turned back to find Ianto looking somewhat conflicted. "What is it, Ianto? Whatever you need."

"Umm… well… could you maybe bring me in something to sleep in? Once I'm in the shower?" Ianto asked quietly, almost sounding embarrassed to ask. Jack sighed internally, wishing that Ianto could feel more comfortable asking him for help. Wishing that Ianto knew there wasn't much he wouldn't do for him if he asked.

"Of course. I'll have your painkillers and some water ready when you get out, too, so you can just get straight into bed and rest."

Ianto nodded, pushing gingerly to his feet.

Jack turned once more to leave; he had only taken two steps out of the door when Ianto's voice called him back. "Jack?"

"Yes?"

Ianto's eyes burned right into him. "Thanks, for this."

Knowing that Ianto didn't want to hear any platitudes about it being nothing, and no bother – even though they were true – Jack simply nodded and let Ianto push the bathroom door shut between them.

Ianto looked cleaner but not significantly less pained when he emerged from the shower some time later in the faded pyjamas Jack had discovered in his chest of drawers. Jack met him at the bathroom door with the promised glass of water and pain pills. "Come on," he said while Ianto obediently swallowed them. "Bed for you."

It was probably a mark of how tired Ianto was - and how much pain he was still in while he waited for the painkillers to kick in - that he allowed Jack to support him heavily across his bedroom and into bed, and didn't protest when Jack gave in to the urge he'd been suppressing since the moment they entered the flat and smoothed his duvet up and around Ianto's shoulders.

"Get some sleep," Jack said softly, but Ianto already was.

Jack looked up from the book he had borrowed from Ianto's bookshelf, listening for a moment to check he wasn't imagining things. No, there it was again.

He put the book down, absently noting his page, and hurried back through to the bedroom. Ianto's eyes were open, but Jack couldn't be sure if he was actually awake or not.

"Ianto?" He walked around to the side of the bed, making sure that – if Ianto was actually awake – he stayed in his line of sight. He sat down on the very edge of the bed. "Ianto?" he tried again.

This time, Ianto's eyes snapped over to him and he blinked. "Jack?"

"Yes, it's me," Jack said, keeping his voice low and soothing. "You're back at your flat, you're going to be okay."

The fog started to lift from Ianto's gaze, and he tried to sit up, wincing slightly despite the pain relief.

"Here, let me give you a hand." Jack reached around him, helping him upright and shifting the pillows behind him to support him.

Ianto's breathing was still rapid, although shallow, in deference to his ribs.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Ianto hesitated for a second. "I was going to become another collection of cling filmed body parts in a freezer," he murmured shakily. "They really wanted to…"

Shifting closer, Jack very carefully wrapped his arms around Ianto, holding him close as he trembled in the aftershocks of his nightmare. "It's okay," he soothed, closing his eyes. "It's going to be okay."

The tremors stopped within minutes, and shortly after that, Ianto pulled away. "Sorry," he said, looking away. "I didn't mean to…"

"Don't apologise," Jack interrupted. "It's really not necessary. You've just been through a traumatic experience; that more than qualifies you to be a bit shaken up."

Ianto took a slow, steady breath. "I know, it's just…" He sighed shallowly. "I was starting to hope the nightmares were passing, but now…"

He looked back up, met Jack's eyes. "Thank you, again, for being here. I…" He shook his head. "As pathetic as it sounds to say it out loud, I'm glad I'm not alone after that."

Jack scoffed. "It's not pathetic at all. Just human. And you know that I will be here any time, if you need someone. You just have to say the word."

Ianto said nothing, and just looked at him. Jack looked back, hoping that whatever Ianto needed from him could be found in his eyes.

Without warning, Ianto leaned forward, pressing his lips firmly to Jack's, one hand gripping Jack's elbow. Jack's mind reeled, and it took him a few seconds to realise that this was actually happening; it wasn't just the product of his imagination. No matter how many times he had imagined a similar scene over the past months, none of his musings quite matched the actuality.

He knew this wasn't a good idea, not now. Ianto was injured, vulnerable. Doped up on painkillers. This definitely wasn't the right time.

He knew this, but it didn't stop him from kissing Ianto back.

* * *

And so we have to come to the end. But not THE END quite yet. The next story in this series is being written right now, and it'll start being posted just as soon as I'm done!


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